Style Conversational Week 1483: Calling stable geniuses! The Empress of The Style Invitational on this week’s foal-name contest and Wordle-phrase winners Image without a caption By Pat Myers April 7, 2022 at 5:28 p.m. EDT Great shakes: Epicenter winning last month's Louisiana Derby with Joel Rosario aboard. Like 99 other Triple Crown nominees, he'll have his name up for stud in Style Invitational Week 1483. (His own parentage? Not This Time x Silent Candy. Go figure.) (Lou Hodges Jr./Hodges Photography via AP) Comment 0 Add to your saved stories Save Gift Article Share My goodness, the entire premise of The Style Invitational’s Pun for the Roses contest — a.k.a. It’s Post Time, What a Foal Am I, and more — is that traditionally, a racehorse’s name reflects those of its sire and dam. Not as cleverly as the Losers do it, of course — and now in Week 1483 you get to show yourself once again with 100 new names — and never universally, but often enough that it inspired Invite fan and serious horseplayer Mike Hammer to suggest this contest to my predecessor, the Czar, back in 1995. But I was looking at the list of this year’s 300-plus nominees for the Triple Crown races, which also listed each horse’s mom and dad, and whole pages of the printout would go by without a horse named for even one of his (almost always “his”) parents. Presidential? The offspring of Pioneer of the Nile and Uptown Twirl. Slow Down Andy? Nyquist x Edwina E. The early favorite, Epicenter? Not This Time x Silent Candy. But whew, there are at least some names carrying on the tradition. Not cleverly, mind you: They’re clearly leaving that to us. Well, okay, I’ll give some props to Doppelganger, son Into Mischief and Twice the Lady. But mostly: Summer Front x Always Tomorrow = Summer Is Tomorrow. Into Mischief x Kitten’s Point = Kitten Mischief. [Weeps.] But maybe we’ll inspire the syndicates (or whoever’s naming the horses these days) of tomorrow. Our foal name contest consistently draws the most entries of the year, usually in the neighborhood of 4,000 from close to 400 entrants, and many hundreds of those entries are pretty darn clever. Lots of people send the maximum of 25 entries. I always run the whole list of 100 horses in the print paper, even with its limited space, because there are always a lot of Washington Post readers who’ll be inspired by the names they see, but would never put the paper down and look up the Invite on their computers or phones. The daunting numbers notwithstanding, I look forward to this contest every year, because there’s so much to like. But still, I’m the only judge of all these names, and my deadline is the same every week — and this is why I’m so pleady and naggy about formatting the entries right. With the indispensable help of Loser Jonathan Hardis, who developed a computer program to sort the entries better than plain ol’ Word will (and make them look consistent, to boot), I’m able to compare the various entries efficiently, with a minimum of repetition, and even winnow them down from a “shortlist” of perhaps 200 names to the 60 or so that will get the ink. As long as you use the simple, just-the-text Horse A x Horse B = Foal C format, one to a line. The instructions are in this week’s column, on the entry form, or both, but here are some reminders: As in actual thoroughbred racing, a name may not exceed 18 characters including spaces, but those characters may include punctuation and numerals. Jonathan’s program will flag names that exceed the limit; sometimes there’s an easy fix, sometimes I just toss it. You may run words together to stay within 18 characters, but the name should be easy to read. Strings of 18 solid characters that don’t look like words — especially if letters are dropped in an effort to stay within the length limit — won’t get ink because they’re no fun to read. There’s a horse on the list named Fromanonthamutha; I didn’t use him. On the other hand, one of my examples today does have the words run together: Iron Works x Enough Already = Iron“StopsWorking”; the capital letters and punctuation keep it readable. It doesn’t matter that almost every horse on the list is male. It’s legal even in Kentucky. Don’t bother coming up with a “foal” name that is a third horse on the list; it won’t get ink. It cannot possibly be as clever an idea as the many, many, many excellent original names submitted. My directions on this week’s entry form: "Type each entry in this format, with each entry on a single separate line: Horse A x Horse B = Your Foal Name “Make sure you spell the real horses’ names correctly! Don’t number them, don’t put little bullets or other thingamajigs before them, don’t use tabs or make them into a table. Don’t boldface them. Just plain old text. Thank you, sweetie!” Thank you, sweetie. The three examples I used today include one with a pun (Clapton x Apprehend = Clapton Irons); one a straightforward and uninspired “operation,” in which the first name is altered by the second (Happy Jack x Make It Big = Ecstatic Jack); and one that is an operation but also puns on the meanings of the words (Iron Works x Enough Already = Iron“StopsWorking”) and also shows readers that they can run words together. Puns were richly rewarded in last year’s results, probably because the names made me laugh, not just say, “That works.” When I’m reading through a list of 4,000 names, funny names jump out at me. If the name isn’t a pun, I’ll figure out what the point is — and often it’s inkworthy, too — but funny names probably have an advantage, because they’re probably more funny to readers, too. The three runners-up last year — all of them by Losers who consistently finish in the money in the horse contests — are puns in the purist’s sense, playing on the sound of the original, as well as cleverly reflecting both parents’ names: Fourth place: Count Tolstoy x Uno = War and Pizza (Rob Wolf) Third place: Like the King x Breadman = Elvis Pretzely (Bernard Brink) Second place: Troubadour x Chaos Reigns = Widespread Luting (Jonathan Paul) And except for the “sound” factor, last year’s Clowning Achievement winner is a pun as well: One Fast Cat x Soup and Sandwich = Usain BLT (Matt Monitto) But the “operation” entries scored abundant ink as well last year, including: Cantata x Defunded = Can’tata (Sarah Walsh) Outasite x Chaos Reigns = Outamind (Drew Bennett) O Besos x Defunded = 0 Pesos (Laurie Brink) Fly Like an Eagle x Midnight Bourbon = Fly Like an Emu (George Smith) Count Tolstoy x Elector = Recount Tolstoy (Pam Sweeney) Core Curriculum x Tarantino = Gore Curriculum (Chuck Smith) By George x Overtook = Bye, George (Duncan Stevens) And you never know: Here are my top four choices in 2014, Week 1066 — all of them operations: 1. Toast of New York x General A Rod = Toast in New York (Jim Stiles) 2. Best Plan Yet x Cut the Net = Best Pla_ Y__ (Pie Snelson) 3. I Earned It Baby x Undertaker = I Urned It Baby (Pam Sweeney; Gary Crockett) 4. Russian Humor x Constitution = What Constitution? (Roy Ashley) And then there are clever, wry entries that are neither puns nor operations, and offer a refreshing change of pace. Like these from last year: By George x Untreated = She’s Got It! (Mary McNamara, Washington) Soup and Sandwich x Hyperfocus = Mmph! Talk Later (Joanne Free) Affable x Likable = Bitter Inside (John Folse) You can see literally thousands of foal names on the “Horses” page of the Master Contest List on the Losers’ own website, NRARS.org. Click on a links in the right column to see the result of a particular contest; they date all the way back to 1995. Also, if you’re wondering if the name you’ve thought up has been used for some earlier colt-on-colt action, check the All Invitational Text plain-text file and search for it. (Also very useful if you’re suggesting a headline to run with the results, or the honorable mentions subhead; we’ve already used dozens!) TRULY SILLY JOLLY FOLLY*: The Wordle phrases of Week 1479 *Non-inking headline by Jesse Frankovich, who got ink instead with the almost as good “FUNNY FIVES FAVES,” which fit on the page I Wordled in my usual four guesses this morning. I also got four on Word Hurdle, which uses six letters and updates twice a day, and five on Le Mot, a French equivalent. I drew the line at Quordle, in which you get nine tries to find four words, not to mention Octordle, ah, come on. Compared with, say, Spelling Bee, the game is over in a flash, and you can’t get sucked into doing it again and again and so you can get on to important matters like horse names. Week 1479 — a contest to write a phrase of all five-letter words, with the extra requirement that a “green” letter must be used in that place for the rest of the grid — clearly proved daunting; there were fewer entries than usual, and more complaints. But this week’s inking entries, especially in the stacked-word format and most especially in four eye-catching grids (color page this week in the print paper!!), make for a short, fun read that displays a variety of approaches to the challenge. (Special thanks to Alla Dreyvitser, the page designer I’ve been reunited with after some musical chairs in the layout department. Alla took a look at the four grids I’d painstakingly created in Microsoft Paint, complimented my effort, then immediately did them all over properly.) I did next to no editing of the entries this week, except to tweak a few of the descriptions. I did find some otherwise inkworthy entries that didn’t meet the only rule I had for the grid: that if a letter is “green” — i.e., if it will appear in the same place in the final word — that letter has to stay in that place for all the remaining words. This one, for example, GIMME SEVEN TRIES, EIGHT MAYBE: A Wordle neophyte’s plaint. “Gimme,” with its last letter of E, needed to be followed with other last-letter-E words to reach “Maybe.” Same problem with this one: ALIEN BEING LANDS, CALLS TRUMP IDIOT: That’s the risk when we take them to our leaders. (The I in “Alien” needed to be repeated as the third letter all the way to “Idiot.”) I did rescue one entry by removing a word that broke the rule, but otherwise I didn’t tinker with the makeup of the grids. It’s the 13th Invite win, and the second Clowning Achievement, for Hildy Zampella, who described “RATES, DATES, MATES, SATES, HATES” as “A brief Tinder love story” alternatively recounted as “Swipe right, spend the night, take flight.” The three runners-up are all veterans of the Losers’ Circle as well: Jon Gearhart with a gibe about people who feel compelled to announce their Wordle scores every day on social media (praying that I don’t get outraged mail about the use of “moron”); Duncan Stevens mocking of Florida’s new law, called “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics, by making use of the conveniently five-lettered “LGBTQ”; and Sarah Walsh with her salute to allergy season. What Doug Dug: Ace Copy Editor Doug Norwood, who’s back after a several-week vacation (what IS that?), read the 14 entries on the print page and agreed with me on the winners — all four of the grids are on our print page (which — yea! — is in color this week) and also singled out Chris Doyle’s “Solid Waste Audit Chief” as a résumé item for a dumpster diver, plus Jon Gearhart’s “Olive Green Llama Vomit” as the quintessential Loser prize, an entry that works especially well on a week we’re featuring the Poo-Dough kit. Loserfest returns — with a Niagara Falls trip! July 25-29 Just announced: For the farthest-afield Loserly Vacation Safari since Las Vegas in 2008 (the closest: Washington, D.C., 2006), Loserfest Pope Kyle Hendrickson is organizing a trip to Canada-side Niagara Falls and surroundings. The Royal Consort and I haven’t taken a vacation since 2019, so we’re signing up. Consider joining us! (Note: The July 25-29 dates, Monday-Friday including travel on the first and last days, are a change from what I originally posted on April 7.) The Losers have been getting together on offbeat trips almost as long as the Invite has been around; Kyle counts 18 out-of-town (well, one in town) excursions called Loserfest since 1995. We went to the one in Pittsburgh in 2016 and had a great time with about a dozen other Losers and Loser-adjacent folks. Kyle dug up all kinds to things to see and do, including glass-blowing and touring a bicycle museum and lots and lots of food consumption, but the highlight had to have been the leisurely personal tour we were given at an art gallery of its Yayoi Kusama exhibition, which later became one of the most in-demand ever at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington. (Just try to get a pass for it now.) Kyle’s set up a website for the Niagara Falls trip. The details aren’t worked out yet, but he wanted to get the word out, especially for people who have to order passports. He welcomes suggestions for the “Fungenda” page of activities that people can opt to do on any given day: “The Fungenda will consist of “touristy” and off-the-beaten path activities. For example, we will definitely be taking the Maid of the Mist cruise (or something similar). But, we might (probably not) also take a jaunt over to Buffalo, NY to take selfies next to Shark Girl. If you have any suggestions, send them to loserfestpope@gmail.com.” Not surprisingly, such long-distance, $$y excursions tend to be small-group affairs, perhaps a dozen or 15 people. But I’ve been to the Niagara area in July and it’s a perfect time of the year to escape the Washington HotHazyHumid. Kyle hopes to organize carpooling for the eight-hour drive, but of course you’re welcome to go on your own. Remember, going to Canada now requires a passport. If you want to go to Ontario and don’t have one, get moving! The process is somewhat easier than in the past (you can more easily make your own photos, for example) but it might take longer — the State Department says eight to 11 weeks. I just discovered that my own passport expired in 2020, but can be renewed rather than requiring me to start from scratch, since it was issued in the past 15 years. And don’t worry, somehow the Invitational will come out that week.