Style Conversational Week 1297: Such a character
The Empress discusses this week’s ‘typo’ contest and our handy guide
to the Constitution
Kevin Dopart's non-inking rebus for the Week 1293 contest to explain the
Constitution: That'd be Ewe Can Bee Hymn-peach'd.
By
Pat Myers
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Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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September 13, 2018 at 3:04 p.m. EDT
The Royal Consort has always been astonishingly supportive of the
Empress of The Style Invitational, accompanying her to all those Loser
parties and Flushies and brunches, dutifully toting prizes, modeling
stupid prizes for photos, even constructing the Lose Cannons that go to
first-prize winners. (We won’t even address the matter of how much time
I take away from other activities.)
And quite regularly, he’ll excitedly alert me: “Ooh, how about this for
a contest?” Bless his heart. BUT once in a while, the RC, a.k.a. Mark
Holt, comes up with something that even ol’ pooh-poohing wifey has to
admit is a great idea. And so this week’s Style Invitational, Week 1297,
is our fourth running of the contest to
change one little thing in a headline and write the resulting bank head.
Mark came up with the gas/gab example, as well as one that changes
“moon” to “moron” for which we couldn’t get the bank head to work.
We came up with several of these headlines within a few minutes of
paging through the print Post, but I readily admit that The Post’s (and
some other papers’) heds have become more like summary sentences and
less suited for this contest. That’s one of the reasons I’m not going to
object to significantly truncated sentences, though the cut should be
from one end or the other; don’t just string words together — I’d like
to keep to the “typo” conceit of the contest: that one little omission
or accidental change could cause a big and hilarious change in meaning.
When I told our cartoonist Bob Staake about this week’s contest, Bob
replied: “As the typo victim of Saturday’s Ithaca Times, I wholly
endorse this contest.” The paper had noted that an illustration by Bob
had been “sued” for a New Yorker cover. It was supposed to be “used.”
In our first hed-typo contest, Week 804 in 2009, I warned that “we’ll
probably prefer entries in which it’s obvious what the original word
was.” I was clearly concerned that including the original word in
brackets would be heavy-handed and would kill the joke. But I don’t
think that’s turned out to be true.
Here are the top winners and a few honorable mentions our three earlier
contests, with links to the rest of the results posted on Elden
Carnahan’s Master Contest List,
which isn’t subject to The Post’s paywall. See what you think:
*Week 804, February 2009: * I probably was favoring entries that didn’t
need the brackets, but gave above-the-fold ink to one that did. (But I
warily tucked it /after/ the headline.)
4. Once More, With Feeding
Kate Moss Launches New Career as Plus Model (Jay Shuck, Minneapolis)
3. What Could Have Been Horse?
Travelers Ponder the Mysteries of Foreign Menus (Beverley Sharp, Washington)
2. the winner of the book “Boring Postcards USA”
Rwanda’s Move Into Condo Fuels Suspicion [Congo]
8 Million Residents in Single Apartment May Be Code Violation (Peter
Metrinko, Chantilly)
And the Winner of the Inker:
In Steep and Swift Fall, Bow Lands at 6-Year Low
Aretha’s Hat
Now Covers
Entire Face (Jay Shuck, Minneapolis ) [I hope everyone figured out that
the original was “Dow”]
President of Oblivia Stirs Fierce Debate
People Still Undecided as to Whether Nation Even Exists (Jeffrey
Contompasis, Ashburn)
New Teat, Old Position [Team]
Reconstructive Surgery Not Intended to Restore ‘Perkiness’ (Russell
Beland, Fairfax)
(Full set of Week 804 results here
.)
*Week 940, October 2011:*
The winner of the Inker: Just ice for a terrorist
Gitmo cooler diet gets colder (Kevin Dopart, Washington)
2. Winner of the two-foot-long Gummi snake:
Hangers headed to World Series
Texas team’s uniforms stolen en route to St. Louis (Jim Reagan, Herndon,
Va.)
3. Tebow gets God as Denver’s QB
Born-again athlete persuades Almighty to sub for him in critical
third-down situations [“gets nod”] (Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.; Roy
Ashley, Washington)
4. A smorgasmbord of oddities
The epicure’s guide to unusual aphrodisiacs (Roger Hammons, North
Potomac, Md.)
Police investigate shooting dearth in Pr. George’s County
No gunfire reported for last two days (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.)
New airport scanners to identify phony IUDs
Privacy activists outraged as TSA counters novel tactic to hide
explosives [“phony IDs”] (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)
(The full set of Week 940 results
.)
*Week 1115, March 2015:*
4th place: [Top] Pot-seeded Terps are all smiles
U-Md. drops ban on grow-boxes in dorms (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.)
3rd place: [Metro] Retro leader search on hold
Nation decides Clinton vs. Bush will be retro enough (Frank Osen,
Pasadena, Calif.)
2nd place and the pink velveteen squid hat:
Netanyahu:[No] Go Palestinian State
Surprising upset pick in Bibi’s NCAA bracket (Brian Collins, Olney, Md.)
And the winner of the Inkin’ Memorial:
Royal Couple Checks Out the [Mall] Malt
Charles chugs Colt 45s while Camilla crushes cans against royal forehead
(Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)
I found my [soul] foul mate, my best friend
BO leads wife to husband’s hiding place (Richard Lempert, Arlington, Va.)
If I can do just a few more reps, a few more [miles] males
Congressional groupie testifies (Chris Doyle)
(The full set of Week 1115 results
.)
*CRUDE AND UNUSUAL*: THE RESULTS OF WEEK 1293* /
Non-inking headline by William Kennard/
//My call inWeek 1293 for novel ways to
explain various sections of the U.S. Constitution was awfully wide open,
because I didn’t want to rule out any approaches that might turn out to
be really funny. And sowe ended up with
everything from epigrams to epic song parodies, including explanations
to a certain chief executive who tends not to read, and some
interpretations “by” the Current Occupant himself.
By the way, did you see that letter to the editor that The Post ran
after the contest was announced?
/“The new Style Invitational contest demonstrates how far the nation’s
respect for the office of the presidency and for the Constitution has sunk./
/“Referring to the knowledge of the ‘current president’ of the
Constitution and to his reading habits, the contest announcement invited
participants to enter humorous translations or explanations of some part
of the Constitution, illustrated by a proverb, slogan, poem, parody or
graphic. The announcement stated that the submissions may be ‘aimed at
the president’s particular attention span or interests.’/
/Have we ever had a president who has invited such a public
demonstration of ridicule and disrespect for the office and for the
Constitution?” — Steven J. Fenves, Rockville/
At first I thought Mr. F was outraged that the Empress would be so
disrespectful of the president of the United States, so willing to mock
this lofty gentleman. But then ... look at that last line. The
president, he said, has /invited / // the disrespect.
And that’s why, perhaps, we’re//the Invitational.
Two of the Invite’s perennial tour-de-force genres — anagrams and song
parodies — dominated this week’s results. Jon Gearhart gets his fifth
win with an amazingly readable translation of the Preamble as a totally
valid anagram, while Jesse Frankovich anagrammed the same passage to
explain not the Constitutional itself, but this very contest — “not the
contest,” one might carp, but I had highly diminished carpacity when it
came to that entry. (By the way, both anagrams work if the modern
American spelling “defense,” rather than “defence,” is used.)
Nan Reiner went to town this week, as she almost always does at the drop
of a song parody or poem contest, scoring a useful pair of
four-leg-holed bikini briefs. Usually I ask second-place Losers to send
in a photo of themselves wearing their silly prize hat or whatever, but
I hereby suspend that request this week.
Duncan Stevens also inked with a crafty take on the Invite’s favorite
parody song, “Be Our Guest,” but finished “above the fold” with one of
several zings this week at the electoral college. (I’m actually not
convinced that we should throw out that system, but I try not to let my
opinions on the issues determine who gets ink.) Duncan is an almost
nonstop ink-blotter, but this week’s third-place finisher, Jon Ketzner,
almost doubled his lifetime ink with his runner-up and two honorable
mentions. Until this week, Jon was much more visible in this very
column, in my selections of unprintable entries (e.g., things to be
thankful for: “I’m thankful that my vegan wife’s refusal to put anything
in her mouth that had a mother extends only to her dietary requirements”).
*LOSER BRUNCH THIS SUNDAY: IT MIGHT NOT EVEN RAIN*
** Now that Hurricane Florence seems not to be heading northward, it
seems as if we in the D.C. area will get off easy this weekend after
all. So Sunday’s Loser brunch at the Indian restaurant Aditi is on (at
noon, in the Kingstowne area a couple of miles outside the Beltway in
Virginia). More info and a link to RSVP to Elden Carnahan at NRARS.org
(click on “Our Social Engorgements”). I live for a
good buffet, which this is. Aditi is a fairly small storefront
restaurant (though as surprisingly elegant one), so it’d be especially
helpful if we know how many places we need at the table.
---
To those in the Loser Community who’ll be dancing with Florence in the
coming days, I wish you a safe and dry week (come on up here and brunch!).