The Style Invitational Week 946 Another round of Bierce
By Pat Myers, Updated: Friday, November 18, 5:00 AM
Bore: A person who talks when you want
him to listen. (Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary,” 1911)
Singer-songwriter: Anyone who owns a
guitar. (Frank Mullen III, The Style Invitational, 2002)
Now in the public domain and
available online in its entirety at bitly.com/biercedictionary, Ambrose
Bierce’s “Devil’s Dictionary” is a marvelous showcase of the author’s
unceasingly cynical wit. One hundred years later, it’s time to add some biting,
or at least wry, definitions of our own, as the Greater Loser Community did in
the same contest almost a decade ago (read the results here). This week: Write
a clever definition of a word, name or multi-word term. (The definition should
refer to the actual meaning of the word, rather than a misreading of it, such
as “coffee — one who is coughed on”; that’s a different contest.)
Winner gets the Inker, the
official Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives a fine gray T-shirt
playing on the York (Peppermint Pattie) candy logo. Donated right off the back
of Loser Dudley Thompson at this year’s Flushies, the Losers’ annual award
“banquet.”
Other runners-up win their
choice of a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt or yearned-for Loser Mug.
Honorable mentions get a lusted-after Loser magnet. First Offenders get a
smelly tree-shaped air “freshener” (FirStink for their first ink). E-mail
entries to losers@washpost.com or fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Nov.
28; results published Dec. 11 (Dec. 9 online) — just a three-week turnaround
this week. No more than 25 entries per entrant per week. Include “Week 946” in
your e-mail subject line or it may be ignored as spam. Include your real name,
postal address and phone number with your entry. See contest rules and
guidelines at washingtonpost.com/styleinvitational. The revised title for next
week is by Jeff Contompasis; this week’s honorable-mentions subhead is by Drew
Bennett.
Still going on: Laugh-Baked
Ideas: The Invitational’s edible-art contest!
The deadline is Nov. 28 to
submit your clever gingerbread dioramas and other food-as-humor. See the
contest rules here.
Report from Week 942, in which we asked you to supply an idea for a Style
Invitational contest that’s so ridiculously restrictive, there would be only
one good entry (yours). As predicted, this turned into a groaner-pun-fest —
consider yourself warned. By the way, perhaps we’re wrong about some of these
proposed contests: Maybe there is a funnier answer out there in one of the
categories below. Tell it to us and you’ll win a magnet.
The winner of the Inker
A contest to come up with a
name for an older-adult swim diaper. Winner: Deep Ends. (Beverley Sharp,
Montgomery, Ala.)
2. Winner of the deck of
cards with various insects pictured on them: A contest to coin a term for the
parents of your live-in lover: Sin-laws. (Mark Richardson, Washington)
3. A contest to title a bean
casserole cookbook for church and synagogue dinners. Winner: Tooteronomy.
(Elwood Fitzner, Valley City, N.D.)
4. A contest to create lines
that would have appeared under the Republican candidates’ high school yearbook
pictures: Winner: Rick Perry as Most Likely to Secede. (Ward Kay, Vienna, Va.)
One-hit unders: Honorable mentions
A contest to find the best
term for the havoc that can be wreaked from a toddler’s car seat. Winner:
Minivandalism. (Kevin Dopart, Washington)
A contest to name an upbeat
sequel to “Les Miserables.” Winner: “Less Miserables.” (Cathy Lamaze, North
Potomac, Md.)
A contest to name the
mucous-membrane inflammations suffered by France’s Sun King. Winner: Louis
Catarrhs. (Mae Scanlan, Washington)
A contest to coin a term for
yawning showily as a snide indication that someone is boring. Winner:
Snarkolepsy. (Nandini Lal, Bethesda, Md.)
A contest to name
Siberia’s answer to Hooters: Winner: Bodacious Tatars. (Chris Doyle, Ponder,
Tex.)
A contest to come up with a
term for a Redskins running back traded because he’s lost a step. Winner:
Portoise. (David Garratt, Glenn Dale, Md.)
A contest to name a medical
profession specializing in removing one’s foot from one’s mouth. Winner:
Bidentistry. (David Garratt)
A contest to name a magazine
that features weird old people. Winner: AARPers Bizarre. (Judy Blanchard, Novi,
Mich.)
A contest to name the
parasite you might get from dining at an Italian restaurant: Pizzeria. (Barry
Kistler, St. James, Md., a First Offender)
A contest to change one
letter in a national landmark and describe the result. Winner: Mount Tushmore:
The 60-foot buttocks of four presidents. (Joe Neff, Warrington, Pa.)
A contest to provide a name
for the solicitation of Style Invitational contest ideas. Winner:
Crudesourcing. (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)
And last: A
contest to describe Style Invitational entrants’ reaction to a contest
requiring them to rearrange the letters A-C-P-R into a four-letter word
printable in The Post: CARP. (Christopher Lamora, Guatemala City)
Next week: Ask Backwards XXIX, or Ask Backwards XXX
(as eagle-eyed Loser Jeff Contompasis noted)
EDIBLE ART: DEADLINE NOV. 28!
You still have another week
to enter