The Style Invitational Week 861: It's incumbent upon
us
By The Empress
Saturday, March 20, 2010; C02
The Watt-Eshoo-Inouye Sex-Change
Regulatory Act (Carol Vance, Washington)
Every two years, at the
beginning of each session of Congress, The Style Invitational invites readers
to combine the names of two or more freshman members (and sometimes, oddly,
newly departed ones) to create "joint legislation." That's not often
enough for some Losers, such as Mark Eckenwiler of Washington, who suggests an
off-year contest so that we can exploit the colorful names of the incumbents as
well. So we'll do sort of the converse of the freshmen contest: This week's
pool of legislators includes only those who were elected to their seats before
1994, the first year we ran the freshman contest. The example above is from the
time we used the entire Congress, way back in Week 5, in 1993; it's the only
entry from that contest whose legislators are all still in their original
seats. (And it demonstrates that while you might not be able to stay young
forever, you can sure stay juvenile for 17 years.) The longtime incumbents:
Ackerman, Akaka, Andrews,
Bachus, Bartlett, Barton, Baucus, Becerra, Bennett, Berman, Bingaman, Bishop,
Boehner, Bond, Boucher, Boxer, Brown, Burton, Buyer, Byrd, Calvert, Camp,
Castle, Clyburn, Coble, Cochran, Conrad, Conyers, Costello, Deal, DeFazio,
DeLauro, Diaz-Balart, Dicks, Dingell, Dodd, Dorgan, Dreier, Duncan, Edwards,
Ehlers, Engel, Eshoo, Faleomavaega, Farr, Feingold, Feinstein, Filner, Frank, Gallegly,
Goodlatte, Gordon, Grassley, Green, Gregg, Gutierrez, Hall, Harkin, Hastings,
Hatch, Herger, Hinchey, Hoekstra, Holden, Hoyer, Hutchison, Inhofe, Inouye,
Johnson, Johnson, Kanjorski, Kaptur, Kerry, Kildee, King, Kingston, Kohl,
Leahy, Levin, Levin, Lewis, Lewis, Lieberman, Linder, Lowey, Lucas, Lugar,
Maloney, Manzullo, Markey, McCain, McConnell, McDermott, McKeon, Mica,
Mikulski, Miller, Mollohan, Moran, Murray, Nadler, Neal, Norton, Oberstar,
Obey, Olver, Ortiz, Pallone, Pastor, Payne, Pelosi, Peterson, Petri, Pomeroy,
Rahall, Rangel, Reid, Rockefeller, Rogers, Rohrabacher, Ros-Lehtinen,
Roybal-Allard, Royce, Rush, Scott, Sensenbrenner, Serrano, Shelby, Skelton,
Slaughter, Smith, Smith, Specter, Spratt, Stark, Stearns, Stupak, Tanner,
Taylor, Thompson, Towns, Upton, Velázquez, Visclosky, Waters, Watt, Waxman,
Wolf, Woolsey, Young, Young.
Winner gets the Inker, the
official Style Invitational trophy. Second place gets a comic book we're
surprised we hadn't heard about before: This 1970s series was about a group of
Nazi-fighting World War II heroes -- one for each branch of the services -- who
called themselves the Losers because they kept getting refrigerator magnets
with stupid cartoons on them. No, it was because men had died under their
command. Whatever, this is an original comic, sealed in plastic, and was
donated by Fighting Loser Peter Metrinko.
Other runners-up win their
choice of a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt or yearned-for Loser Mug.
Honorable Mentions get one of the lusted-after Style Invitational Loser
Magnets. First Offenders get a smelly tree-shaped air "freshener"
(Fir Stink for their First Ink). One prize per entrant per week. Send your
entries by e-mail to losers@washpost.com or by fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is
Monday, March 29. Put "Week 861" in the subject line of your e-mail,
or it risks being ignored as spam. Include your name, postal address and phone
number with your entry. Contests are judged on the basis of humor and
originality. All entries become the property of The Washington Post. Entries
may be edited for taste or content. Results to be published April 17. No
purchase required for entry. Employees of The Washington Post, and their
immediate relatives, are not eligible for prizes. Pseudonymous entries will be
disqualified. The revised title for next week's results is by Mark Richardson;
this week's honorable-mentions subhead was sent by both Judy Blanchard and Roy
Ashley. The idea for limiting the congressional pool to old-timers was
suggested by Michael Kilby in The Style Conversational.
Report from Week 857, in which we asked you to produce new words or phrases containing a
block of three consecutive letters of the alphabet -- backward. Seems that
challenge was a bit more daunting than its forward-looking predecessor.
The winner of the Inker
Flingpong: Having your own
affair to get even with a cheating spouse. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village)
2. the winner of the
"Sweeney Todd" Peeps diorama: Burpon: Carbonated whiskey. (Barbara
Turner, Takoma Park)
3. Zyxzag: Path created
during a DWI test when the cop makes you walk 20 steps while reciting the
alphabet in reverse. (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn)
4.Intellectual DCbility: The
newly revised term for "governmental retardation." (Kevin Dopart,
Washington)
PON Scum: Honorable mentions
Ghostponement: A stay of
execution. (Dave Prevar, Annapolis)
Barf-edit: To blue-pencil all
2,000-some pages of the health care plan. (Mae Scanlan, Washington)
Colon-music: A prettier term
than "farting." (Dion Black, Washington)
Boybandonment: Finally
tossing the 'N Sync posters. (Tom Witte)
Soonmom: Teenager's unit of
time, roughly equivalent to the half-life of carbon-14. (Ira Allen, Bethesda)
Coccyx winks: Stupid butt
tricks. (Kevin Dopart)
Jihades: Where suicide
bombers end up. (Tom Witte; Rick Haynes, Potomac)
Keg-fed: On the fraternity
diet. (Erik Wennstrom, Bloomington, Ind.)
Eonmail: Dial-up. (Barry
Koch, Catlett, Va.)
ABCbabble: "The
View." (Mae Scanlan)
Fedhora: The Romanian hat
dance. (Tom Witte)
Inkjinx: The fate of an
athlete who gets on the cover of Sports Illustrated. (Jack Clark, Westfield,
N.J.)
Iraqpot: A cauldron for a
stew that's heated for seven years. (Rick Haynes, Potomac)
Marshmallow-vulture: The kid
who'll eat the ones that fall off the stick. (Kevin Dopart)
Songfester: An even grosser
term for a catchy tune than "earworm." (Mae Scanlan)
Snottonmouth: The failure of
one's mustache filter. (Dave Prevar)
Ponderosé: A posh
dude ranch. (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.)
Fedgerdemain: The
congressional budget process. (Ira Allen, Bethesda)
Glazed Downuts: Stockholders,
these days. (Mae Scanlan)
Snoutspend: Pay through the
nose. (Pam Sweeney, St. Paul, Minn.)
Next week: Same OED, or The punabridged dictionary