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 close Image without a caption Pat Myers Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003 Email Email Bio Bio Follow Follow 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!).