Style Conversational Week 1395: Your add here The Empress of The Style Invitational on this week’s ‘plus one’ contest and neologism results A “queueueueueueue,” as Loser Edmund Conti put it in his inking neologism this week: Not very well distanced Atlanta voters waiting in line for hours in the Georgia primary election on June 9. A “queueueueueueue,” as Loser Edmund Conti put it in his inking neologism this week: Not very well distanced Atlanta voters waiting in line for hours in the Georgia primary election on June 9. (John Bazemore/AP) By Pat Myers July 30, 2020 at 5:27 p.m. EDT Add to list It was our cartoonist Bob Staake who remembered a Style Invitational contest similar to the one I’d just told him about, Week 1395 — to add a “plus-one” to a group that’s known by a number. It was then I found the results of Week 651, from back in 2006 (yes, I’d been Empress for a while by then, but hey, I can’t remember everything if I’m remembering all my phone numbers since birth, and what could me more useful than that?). It turned out, though, that the suggestion from Very Longtime Loser Art Grinath (although he hath indeed many times made us grinneth, it’s pronounced grin-ATH) was different enough from that contest — not to mention 14 years newer — that we could run it after all. Week 651 asked the Losers to add a character to a book or movie and explain how the plot would change. But most of the inking entries aren’t about any numbered group. And while Week 1395 allows for a movie whose title or plot featured some group known by a number — this week’s example of “Thirteen Angry Men” is an inking entry from that contest — it doesn’t have to be a movie or book. But let’s look back at some of the Week 651 entries anyway, just because they’re a fun read. AD ADVERTISING Fourth place: “Fun With Dick and Jane and Raskolnikov”: See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Run, run, run. Run from the howling pangs of guilt that sear your soul. (Brendan Beary) Third place: The New Testament: Widely considered to be the least talented of the Thirteen Disciples, Ringo nonetheless lands all the hottest babes. (Pam Sweeney) [This would have worked for Week 1395 with a little recasting.] Second place: “Harold and the Purple Koran”: Harold uses his crayon to show kids the acceptable way of sketching Muhammad: Just draw his house and say he’s inside. (Kevin Dopart) And the Winner of the Inker: “Moby-Dick and Flipper”: After killing the whale that cost him his leg, Captain Ahab pursues the dolphin that once splashed him at Sea World. (Jay Shuck), Not Entirely Devoid of Merit: Honorable mentions AD “Back to the Future”: John DeLorean steals his namesake time machine to persuade his younger self to stay at GM, changing history so the DeLorean car no longer exists. Doc Brown and Marty McFly instead use a Ford Pinto, with tragic results. (John Johnston) “Harry Potter”: Late in the seventh book Harry learns he has a twin brother, Larry, who was separated from him at birth. Larry then tells Harry the story of his life, in extraordinary detail, through a whole new series of books, movies, action figures and backpacks. (Russell Beland) “Brokeback Jungle”: After Tarzan/Lord Greystoke returns to civilization, he meets Jane’s brother James. Tarzan then experiences feelings he doesn’t fully understand, although he has seen this sort of thing once or twice back among the bonobos … (Douglas Frank) “Cast Away Too”: A pair of fishnet stockings washes ashore on the island. Wilson the volleyball, longing for net, calls them Ginger and Mary Ann. These three disappear to the other side of the island, leaving the stranded FedEx engineer to seek solace from Little Buddy Coconut. (Wilson AD Varga) “Make Way for Ducklings”: Effete liberals hit the dirt as Dick Cheney pursues Mrs. Mallard and her family across Boston Common. (Kevin Dopart) “The Perfect Storm, With Pat Robertson”: With the help of his trusty sidekick God, the Reverend moves a super-typhoon from the North Atlantic to San Francisco Bay, where they’ve basically been asking for it. (Brendan Beary) Robert Altman’s “M*A*S*H”: Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland) is joined by his TV twin (Alan Alda), who drives down morale at the 4077th with his self-righteous moralizing about war and sexism. (John Johnston) “The Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse”: The Fifth, Willie Shoemaker, comes up just short in his furious last-minute charge, so the jockeys for the winning trifecta are Famine, Shoemaker and Pestilence. (Roy Ashley) “Gandhi and Norton”: As the Mahatma’s assistant, Art Carney spends hours trying in vain to prepare a simple rice dish. Gandhi finally explodes in a rage and punches him out. (Peter Metrinko) [“Honeymooners” character Ed Norton, bumbling foil to Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden] AD “No, Shoot THIS Piano Player”: Yanni takes over from Charles Aznavour in the barroom … (Bill Spencer) “Psycho”: Things don’t go as planned for Norman Bates when he surprises Janet Leigh and Lou Ferrigno in the shower. (Jeff Brechlin) “2001”: After HAL has killed all but one of the crew members, a HAL Corp. tech support staffer finally picks up the phone. (Pam Sweeney) “Woodstock”: That nerdy guy at work, the one who claims to have been at Woodstock, shows up in a shot of the audience. Well, I’ll be. (Russell Beland) “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Cuddles”: A man survives another day in a Stalinist work camp by talking to an imaginary six-foot chinchilla. (Andrew Hoenig) “One Fish, Five Thousand Fish”: Dr. Seuss adds Jesus to his book. (Peter Metrinko) “The Seven Musketeers”: Weary Porthos, Athos and Aramis welcome the fresh reinforcements. Now they can take on Cardinal Richelieu aided by Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po. (John Shea) AD “Thirteen Angry Men”: The jurors’ anger erupts into gunfire when Yosemite Sam cain’t stand no more infernal yammerin'. (Judith Cottrill, New York) And from the do-over contest the same year: “Richard III”: Mr. Ed joins the cast and becomes King of England. (Kevin Dopart) The Bible: Add the Wife of the Third Wise Man: Baby Jesus receives gifts of gold, frankincense and some adorable onesies. (Pam Sweeney) — For this week’s contest, the answers don’t have to be in a strict format; they might say “The Eleven Commandments” (or “The Eleventh Commandment”) rather than “The Ten Commandments Plus One”; different entries may well require different approaches to make the most of their humor and not waste space or slow down the joke. Meanwhile, while I don’t expect to be sorting out all the entries, it’s always helpful (except for songs and poems) not to put any line breaks within a single entry: That is, don’t hit Return after the title and put the description on a new line. Just use a colon and continue writing. Thankew! AD Syk Humer*: The no-C, O, V, I, D neologisms of Week 1391 *Non-inking headline by Jon Ketzner Despite the lament of at least one Loser that every single interesting new word turned out to require at least one C, O, V, I or D, I received a bumper crop of inkworthy any-other-letters neologisms for the Week 1391 contest. I’d specifically indicated that the topic of covid was in bounds, and many Losers seemed to take that as a hint: Sarah Walsh’s “emaskulate” entry was my choice among 10 of them. And what seems to be true in almost every contest these days, another large fraction of the entries were barbs about the president and his minions. (Too bad we were too late to address Sex With Demons Doctor.) I ended up running 38 entries from 28 Losers, including First Offenders Liz Siegenthaler Rubin and Ward Foeller (their FirStinks for their first inks will be on the way shortly) and Bumped From the One-Hit Wonder List Kate Sammons. And for the second week in a row, the Lose Cannon goes to Jesse Frankovich, in a rare but not hen’s-teeth-rare double, for “harangutan,” his inspired moniker for [duh], and the description “a large orange creature that spends all day bellowing at rivals in the other branches.” (Now if Jesse ends up winning next week, he’d have the first three-in-a-row hat trick since Chris Doyle pulled that off in Weeks 542-544 in 2004.) AD Duncan Stevens’s “Elephantasy” was similarly inspired; both that and “harangutan” deserve to be in widespread use. The other two runners-up concerned our pandemicized lives: Mike Caslin (in his 11th blot of ink, and second trip to the Losers’ Circle) on paper towels — “PeeTee” — as a TP substitute, and veteran Loser Mike Gips for “fleeway,” your escape route if someone encroaches on your social distance. What pleased Ponch: Ace Copy Editor Doug Norwood starts a three-week vacation this week, but we’re delighted to have Also Ace Copy Editor Ponch Garcia filling in and offering his faves. Ponch singled out Duncan Stevens’s runner-up “Elephantasy” of mainstream Republicans that the president will start governing responsibly any day now; Dan Helming’s “F-fluent,” referring to the vocabulary that home-schooled tots are picking up from their stressed-out parents; Bob Kruger’s “Barrf: The gAG reflex”; Sarah Walsh’s “emaskulate: To diminish someone’s manhood by asking him not to infect his neighbors”; “Quaranteam: The concept that we are all in this together — an idea that was thoroughly debunked in March” (Frank Osen); and Danielle Nowlin’s twist: “Covidiot: That’s right, I used every single letter I have been told not to, AS IS MY RIGHT! FREEDOM!!!” What didn’t work so well: In every neologism contest I judge — “dozens” would be a very safe way to put it — some entries go wrong in the same ways. Here are a few uh-uhs: AD — Useless word: It’s really great when a neologism can be applied to a real-life situation. It’s usually not so great when it’s not. Like “Rampants: Trousers for male sheep.” If you’ll look down the list of this week’s results, you’ll see that almost every neologism refers to someone or something that really exists; one exception is Drew Bennett’s “Red Membranes” as an alternative name for what is now officially the Washington Football Team. [Day-after update: Whoops! Too late for the print edition, I removed Drew’s entry from the Invite because .... it has a D. D’oh.] — Hard-to-read word: I got this one this week: “Style Entryadyrabll.” It looked like Welsh. After puzzling it out for some time, I think it’s a play on “adorable.” But we don’t want readers to have trouble even being able to read the word. — (for a contest like this) Spelling changes just to fit the rules, not to add to the humor: For example: “Magagasger — A place where conspiracy theories are born.” The first part, Mada to Maga, works; but changing the rest of the place name from “gascar” to “gasger” (I don’t know why it wasn’t “gasgar” at least) is just misspelling it to avoid the prohibited C. — Not enough joke. “Affabull: Feigned pleasantries.” Great word that would have been inkworthy had it had a funny example of a feigned pleasantry. Also: Since the word it’s based on, “affable,” is an adjective, the definition would have worked better as an adjective, though you could argue that “bull,” as in BS, is a noun. Sometimes a straight description will work anyway; Jesse Frankovich almost got ink with “Assthmus: A thong.” — Using “shun” for “-tion.” I haven’t checked the archives, but I bet that very few neologisms have gotten ink with that pun. It just doesn’t sound right and it’s heavy-handed. This week I got 12 of them, including “puntuayshun” (also violating the convenient-spelling ban), “nayshun,” “temptashun,” “celebrashun,” “salvashun,” “relashun” and “represhun.” Maybe there’s an exception out there, but I’m almost certain to -tion them.