| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1550 | Holy Moly, It's Limerixicon XX | Write a limerick featuring a word beginning "ho-". | H |
| 1518 | The final Post edition | Some all-time favorite entries | H |
| 1505 | Munici-pals | Choose any two or more real U.S. or Canadian towns — they need to show up on a Google search — and come up with a joint endeavor they would undertake. | H |
| 1489 | Let's movie things around | Rearrange the words of a movie title to create a new movie, then describe it | H |
| 1469 | Post Mortems 2021, our obit poems | Write a poem of no longer than eight lines (plus an optional title) about someone who died in 2021. | H H |
| 1448 | Hear, hear -- it's Limerixicon XVIII | Supply a humerous, previously unpublished limerick significantly featuring any word, name or term beginning with "he-". | H H |
| 1441 | \'Rick rolling: songs as limericks | Sum up or otherwise reflect a well-known song as a limerick. | H |
| 1437 | One-offs: A 'typo' neologism contest | You're a fat-fingered typist: Change a word, name or phrase by either adding or substituting one letter that's adjacent (in any direction) to the original one on a regular QWERTY keyboard, or by doubling the correct letter. | H |
| 1427 | Rocky of ages, or Badenov for you? | State any historical event -- right up to 2021 -- in the provided "A, or B" format. | H |
| 1403 | Who was that masked man? | Current a short listing for a current or past TV show that has a coronavirus story line, or one reflecting some other issue in the news right now. | W |
| 1387 | Movie clips -- drop letters from the middle of a title | Delete one or more letters (they must be consecutive) from the middle of a movie title, and describe the resulting new movie. | H |
| 1358 | What to your wondering eyes will appear? | Write a humorous passage -- a "quote", an observation, a joke, a dialogue, a poem, anything -- using only words that appear in "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (a.k.a "The Night Before Christmas"). | H H 2 |
| 1350 | Here's inspo for new-word poems | Write a poem of eight lines or fewer featuring one or more of these recent additions to m-w.com. | W H |
| 1346 | AZ if -- balancing acts | Think of a new word or two-word phrase that begins and ends -- either way -- with one of the provided "alphabetically balanced" pairs. | L 2 |
| 1345 | The confaketionary -- food fictoids | Tell us some comically false "fact" about food, drink or dining. | H |
| 1329 | Shakespeare + Thee: Tailgaters | Select any line from a work by Shakespeare (poetry or prose) and pair it with your own line to create a humorous rhyming couplet. | H |
| 1327 | Mess with our (or anyone's) heads | Reinterpret (or comment wryly on) a headline (or a big part of a headline) by writing a bank head, or subtitle. | H H |
| 1324 | Chapter and worse | Tell or describe a Bible story, or another classical or folk tale, very briefly (75 words would be lengthy) in the voice of a particular author or other person. | 3 |
| 1323 | Selected shortened subjects | Delete one or more letters from the beginning or end (or both) of a movie title and describe the resulting movie. | H |
| 1307 | One-for-one for all | Replace one letter in an existing word, name or multi-word phrase with one different letter (in the same place in the word) and define or describe the result. | H |
| 1304 | All the muse that's fit to print | Present a "what if" scenario and explain its effect. | H H H |
| 1303 | Neologisms to di- for | Replace a digraph in an existing word or phrase with another digraph to make a new term. | H |
| 1292 | Golly gosh, it's Limerixicon XV | Supply a humorous, previously unpublished limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term, beginning with "gl-" through "go-". | W H H H |
| 1289 | Fake gnus: bogus animal trivia | Tell us a fictoid -- a humorously false "fact" -- about the nonhuman animal kingdom. | H H H |
| 1286 | Mind your P's and B's (and more) | Replace one or more P's in a word, name, or multi-word term with a B or with another letter and define or describe the results. | H H H |
| 1280 | A la'ugh' a minute with 'air quotes' | Highlight part of a word, name or short phrase in "air quotes" to give it a new meaning or description. | H H |
| 1276 | What 4? A limerick contest | Use a limerick using one of the provided lines as Line 5. | H |
| 1275 | That is the question | Choose a line from Shakespeare (or a significant part of a line) and pair it with a question that the line could humorously answer. | W H H |
| 1272 | The hex files: creative curses | Come up with a creative curse. | H |
| 1269 | Mess with our (or other) heads | Reinterpret (or comment wryly on) a headline appearing in The Post (print or online) or another publication and dated March 1-12 by writing a bank head. | H |
| 1265 | Parody for the course | Write a song relating to a class or course of instruction, or to school in general. | H |
| 1262 | Clue us in -- a backward crossword | Supply one or more creative clues for the provided filled-in crossword grid -- as many as 25 clues in all. | H H |
| 1247 | Script tease | Offer a quote from a script whose title you've given a different plot. | H |
| 1246 | Questionable journalism | Find any sentence (or a substantive part of a sentence) that appears in The Post or another publication, in print or online, dated Sept. 21-Oct. 2, and pair it with a question it might answer. | H H |
| 1243 | We bid you: No T-R-U-M-P | Coin a new term, or choose an existing one, whose letters do not include a T, R, U, M, or P, and write a humorous definition. | H |
| 1240 | We GIVE you Limerixicon XIV | Supply a humorous, previously unpublished limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term beginning with "gh-" or "gi-". | H H H H |
| 1239 | MASH 3 | Combine two movie titles and describe the result. | H H |
| 1235 | The Sound of Science | Write humorous lyrics on the subject of science or technology, set to a well-known tune. | H |
| 1229 | Gorey bits from A to Z | Send us one of more edgy rhyming alphabet-primer couplets. | H |
| 1221 | Who's kidding whom? | Take two people from history, past or present, and tell what their child would be like | H |
| 1220 | O pedantry, O pedantry | Give us some humorous pedantry. | P |
| 1219 | Cast your Bred upon us | Write a Lik the Bred verse about someone in the news lately. | H H |
| 1218 | Mess with our -- or anyone else's -- heads | Reinterpret (or comment wryly on) a headline appearing in the Post (print or online or another publication dated March 9-20) by writing a bankhead, or subtitle. | H |
| 1195 | Don't change a letter! | Alter a movie title only by changing word spacing, changing capitalization, and adding or deleting punctuation marks, accents, etc., then describe the result. | H |
| 1191 | Mess with our heads | Reinterpret (or comment wryly on) a headline appearing in The Post (print or online) and dated Sept. 1-12 by writing a bank head, or subtitle | H |
| 1186 | We're always happy to verse you | Write a humorous poem, of any form, about or “by” the anagram of anyone’s name. | 2 |
| 1184 | Plan C -- a third candidate? | Explain why some novel person (or thing) should be president; you could also suggest a president-veep ticket. | H |
| 1181 | Put it in Bee-verse | Write a short, humorous poem using one of the 36 provided words, all from the 2016 National Spelling Bee. | H |
| 1178 | A ______ of collective nouns | Propose one or more funny new names for groups of things. | H |
| 1172 | Pieces of 'Pie' | Write a short passage -- an observation, a joke, a dialogue, a poem, anything -- using only words that appear in the song "American Pie". | P H H |
| 1171 | What's my (next) line? | Take a line from any song and pair it with your own second line to make a humorous rhyming couplet; the second line should match the rhythm of the first, rather than the second line of the song itself. | H |
| 1167 | So what's to liken? | Take any two items from the provided list and explain how they're similar or different, or connect them some other way. | H |
| 1166 | Questionable journalism | Take a sentence (or most of a sentence) that appears in text (not a headline) in The Washington Post or on washingtonpost.com dated March 10-21 and make up a question that the sentence could answer | H H H H 4 |
| 1165 | B all you can B | Change a word, phrase or name by adding one or more B's, and/or by replacing one or more letters with B's, and define your new term. | H |
| 1163 | Put it in reverse | Spell a word, name or phrase backward and define the result in a way that relates to the original. | H |
| 1162 | An 8-year Re-Onion | Write a fictional Onion-type headline. | H H H |
| 1161 | Give us four Pinocchios | Tell us some false "facts" about politicians, present or past. | H H H 4 |
| 1160 | A remeaning task | Redefine an existing word or two-word term beginning with P through Z. | H H H |
| 1157 | Clue us in -- a backward crossword | Supply clever, funny clues to up to 25 of the words and multi-word terms in the provided grid. | H H |
| 1156 | Dead letters | Write a humorous poem of no longer than eight lines about someone who died in 2015. | H 2 |
| 1155 | Vowel movement | Choose a title of a book, movie, play or TV show; drop all the vowels (including Y when it's used as a vowel); then add your choice of vowels -- as many as you like -- to create a new work; and describe it. | H H |
| 1151 | To [a glass], snarkly | Write a short, snarky (but witty) note to one of the provided glassbowls. | H |
| 1150 | A deviant character | Change the name of person or animal -- real or fictional -- by adding or subtracting one letter; substituting one letter for another; or switching the positions of two nearby letters, and describing the results. | I |
| 1148 | It's TankaWanka II | Write a TankaWanka about something that's been in the news lately. The poem must consist of five lines of 5, 7, 5, 7 and 7 syllables in that order. And it must include at least one rhyme. | H H |
| 1146 | Stick it to us with a magnet | Suggest a new Style Invitational honorable-mention magnet. | H H |
| 1145 | A DICEy situation | Coin a word or multi-word term that contains the letter block D-I-C-E. | H H |
| 1144 | Someone else's business | Name a real brand, along with something else it would be a better name for. | H |
| 1143 | Ask Backwards | Provided are 15 answers, separated by asterisks. You supply the questions. | M |
| 1141 | Mess with our heads | Reinterpret (or comment wryly on) a headline appearing in the Post (print or online) Sept. 17-28 by writing a bankhead, or subtitle. | H H H H |
| 1140 | You're giving us a bad name | Cite a REAL brand name, past or present, note its original use, and then say what sort of product, organization, etc., that name would be bad for. | H |
| 1138 | Show us your touché | Offer an elegantly snide (and original) insult of anyone living or dead. | H |
| 1136 | Gaah! It's Limerixicon XII | Supply a humorous, previously unpublished limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term beginning with "ga-". | H |
| 1134 | The 'Sty'le Invitational Red'ux' | Put quotation marks around part of a word, name or phrase and define the result. | W H |
| 1133 | Are 'hew ready? A contest for clerihews | A clerihew is a humorous four-line rhyming poem about a person whose name is mentioned in the first line; in fact, the name must be at the end of that line (or constitute the whole line) so that it has to rhyme with something. The rhyme structure (and we don't want "lazy" rhymes) is AABB: the first line rhymes with the second, the third with the fourth. | W H H H H |
| 1126 | Picture this | Provide a humorous caption for any of the cartoons provided. | H |
| 1124 | Heed! Indeed: Advice verse | Write one of the provided reminders as a humorous poem of eight lines or fewer. | T H H |
| 1122 | Colt Following: 'Grandfoals' | Breed" any two of the 65 foal names that got ink this week and name the offspring to reflect the parents' names. | 3 |
| 1121 | The an(n)als of civilization | Briefly describe some "bad day in history" -- you may be creative in what you classify as such -- and sum it up with a humorous heading. | T H |
| 1120 | Celebrating our differences | Each of the provided 17 items appeared in a different Style Invitational compare/contrast contest from 1996 to 2014. Explain how any two of them are alike or different or otherwise linked. | H 2 |
| 1118 | Breed 'em and weep | Breed any two of the provided 100 racehorses nominated for this year's Triple Crown events and name the foal the reflect both names. | H |
| 1112 | Some SHARP words | Coin a word or short term that includes all the letters S, H, A, R, and P. | H H H |
| 1108 | Hearts of dorkness | Write a humorous Valentine's Day sentiment to someone (or to some organization), either real or fictional -- either from you or from someone else you name. Plus an all-new option: We'll also be willing to run at least one really funny, clever, well-executed graphic. | H |
| 1107 | Send us the bill | Combine two or more names from the list of members of Congress on this page to "cosponsor" a bill based on their combined last names, and state its purpose. | H H |
| 1105 | A lit obit of fun | Write a humorous poem of no longer than eight lines about someone who died in 2014. | H H |
| 1101 | The year in redo | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 1047 through Week 1097, except for Week 1050. | T |
| 1099 | Questionable journalism | Take a sentence (or most of a sentence) that appears in an article in The Washington Post or on washingtonpost.com dated Nov. 20 through Dec. 1 (in print, any article from those days' papers), and make up a question that the sentence could answer. | H H |
| 1095 | TankaWanka! | Write a TankaWanka about something that's been in the news lately. The poem must consist of five lines of 5, 7, 5, 7 and 7 syllables in that order. And it must include at least one rhyme. | H |
| 1091 | Good idea! or not. | Come up with a good idea and, through a small change in wording, a bad idea. | H H H |
| 1086 | Playing the dozens | 1. Start with any 12-letter word, name or multi-word phrase. 2. Add one letter OR drop one letter OR substitute another letter OR switch the position of two letters to create a new term, as in the examples given. 3. Define or describe the result humorously. |
H 4 |
| 1084 | Limerixicon XI: Fi-, fo-, go! | Supply a humorous, previously unpublished limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term beginning with "Fl-" through "fo-". | W H H |
| 1079 | Little piddle riddle | Ask a question and answer it with a rhyme. | H |
| 1077 | Time marches Swiftly | Give us a novel Tom Swifty, playing on either an adverb or a verb (e.g., "We care about the little people, the BP chairman gushed"). | M H H |
| 1076 | Dactyly fractyly | Send us some double dactyls that conform to Gene Weingarten's rules. | H H 3 |
| 1074 | Let's go parody-hopping | Describe a stage or movie musical in a parody of a song from a different musical. | H |
| 1073 | Bank shots: Mess with (y)our heads | Quote a headline appearing in the Washington Post, washington.com or another publication, print or headline, dated May 22 to June 1, and supply a "bank" headline that either misinterprets it, as in the examples above, or comments wryly on it. | 4 |
| 1072 | The Tile Invitational | Come up with a 5-, 6-, or 7-letter term by scrambling any of the provided seven-letter ScrabbleGram sets, and define it. | W H |
| 1059 | With parens like these . . . | Add some words in parentheses to a well-known song title to make it funnier in some way. | H H H |
| 1058 | Eastwood Ho | Create a good-bad-ugly progression. | 2 |
| 1057 | Sportin' lie | Give us some fake sports trivia. | H |
| 1055 | Oh, K! | This week, to commemorate both Kevin Dopart and his 1K ink blots: Change a word, phrase or name by adding one or more K's, and define your new term. | H |
| 1054 | Dead letters | Write a short, humorous poem commemorating someone (or maybe even something) who died in 2013. | H |
| 1053 | Questionable journalism | Quote an actual sentence, from The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, or another print or online publication dated between Dec. 26 and Jan. 6, and follow it with a question that the sentence might answer. | L H H H 2 |
| 1052 | Clue us in | Come up with up to 25 creative, funny clues for the words and multi-word terms that appear in the provided grid. | W |
| 1051 | Love the tiny tail stain! | Create an anagram -- a text with the letters rearranged -- of any text (except merely someone's name), of any length, referring to something or someone in the news. | H |
| 1050 | Just redo it | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 1000 through Week 1046. | W H H H |
| 1047 | Bank shots | Quote a headline appearing in The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com or another publication, print or online, dated Nov. 14 to Nov. 25, and supply a humorous "bank" headline that either misinterprets it or comments wryly on it. | H H H H H H |
| 1045 | Songs for the asking | Take a sentence, phrase or title from a song and provide a funny question it might answer. | L H H |
| 1044 | Play it safe | Come up with a comically safety-conscious rule for the workplace or elsewhere. | H |
| 1043 | Rechanneling celebrity | Describe a TV reality show featuring a celebrity pursuing some unlikely endeavor. | H |
| 1041 | What have you got to lose? | Answer a question, real or rhetorical, that appears in a song. | H H 3 |
| 1036 | Just for liffs | Use a real place name, from anywhere in the world, as a new term. | L H H 2 |
| 1034 | What's to like? | Supply an original joke of the form "I like my [your choice] the way I like my [something else of your choice]: [some clever, funny parallel]. | H H |
| 1033 | LimeriXicon | Supply a humorous limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term beginning with "fa-". | H H 4 |
| 1027 | Built for two | Give humorous related names for any pair of features in a given building, organization, etc. | H H |
| 1025 | In so many words | Create an original backronym for a name or other term, especially one that's been in the news lately. | H |
| 1024 | Gorey thoughts | Send us some edgy rhyming alphabet-primer couplets. The pairs are AB, CD, EF, GH, IJ, KL, MN, OP, QR, ST, UV, WX, and YZ. | H 3 |
| 1023 | Hai there, Martians! | Write one or more humorous haiku that will greet the Martians or share a little nugget of what life is like on Earth. | H |
| 1017 | Vowel play | Write a "univocalic" newspaper headline -- one that uses only one vowel throughout. | M H H |
| 1015 | Faux re mi | Give us some humorously false trivia about music or musicians. | H H H 2 |
| 1013 | Har monikers | Write a riddle that uses a pun of a person's name in the answer. | 4 |
| 1012 | The news at 5 | Write a limerick about a recent news event. | H |
| 1011 | Top these! | Try your hand at any of the contests mentioned in this look back. | H H H H H H |
| 1010 | Picture this | Write a caption for any of the five provided cartoons. | P |
| 1009 | What's in a name? | Write something about some person, real or fictional, using only the letters in the person's name. | T H |
| 1008 | Switched reels | Re-arrange all the words in the title of a movie, and describe the resulting work. | H H H H H |
| 1004 | Dead letters | Write a humorous poem about anyone who died in 2012. | H 3 |
| 1003 | Just do it | Use a well-known advertising slogan for a different company, organization or product to humorous effect. | W H |
| 1000 | We now have 4 digits; you now have 7 letters | Choose any word, name or two-word term beginning anywhere from T through Z; then add one letter, drop one letter, substitute one letter for another, or transpose two adjacent letters, and define the result. | H H H |
| 991 | Tour de Fours IX | Create a new word or two-word term containing the letter block V, O, T, and E and define it. | H |
| 986 | Hear here! | Give us a sentence or short dialogue that would be a lot funnier if a word in it were mistaken for a homophone of that word. | H |
| 983 | Limerixicon IX | Supply a humorous limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term beginning with the letters "eq-" through "ez-". | W H H H |
| 977 | Lost in Translation 2.0 | Translate a line of text from English into another language using Google Translate; then copy that result and translate it back into English. You may also make intermediate steps into one or more other languages. | H |
| 974 | Eat our dust! | Write a limerick humorously describing a book, play, movie, or TV show. | H H 3 |
| 972 | Trends and neighbors | Choose any two items on the provided list and explain how they are alike or different. | H H 3 |
| 971 | Double booking | Come up with a double book with a humorous connection; the first title must be an actual book, while the other may be your own fictitious title or a second real book. | H H |
| 970 | Couple it | Take a line from any well-known poem and pair it with your own second line to make a humorous couplet. | W H H |
| 962 | Questionable journalism | Take any sentence (or a major part of it) that appears in the Post or in an article on washingtonpost.com anytime from now through March 19 and supply a question it could answer. | H 4 |
| 939 | MASH 2: The Retread | Combine two movie titles and describe the result. | H |
| 938 | Free and Lear | Write a limerick using the first two lines of any of Edward Lear's 115 limericks plus your own remaining three lines. | H H H 2 |
| 932 | We'll call them your-mama jokes | Tell us an original "your mama" joke. | H |
| 931 | Limerixicon 8 | Supply a humorous limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term beginning with the letters ea- through -el. | H H H H H 2 |
| 929 | Now sit right back ... | Write a funny song introducing a TV show, past or present. | H 2 |
| 928 | Play feature | Use the title of a movie as the answer to a riddle or other question. | H H |
| 927 | Drive-By Shoutings | Write a very short four-line “poem” promoting a product or company, or offering advice to drivers; the poem must rhyme, in ABAB or ABCB rhyme scheme. A fifth, non-rhyming line may state the product name or a conclusion. | H H 4 |
| 925 | A remeaning task | Redefine a word in the dictionary beginning with I through O. | 4 |
| 919 | Good Luck With 13 | Alter a 13-letter word, phrase or name by one letter (add a letter, drop a letter, switch two letters somewhere in the word, or substitute one letter for another) and describe the result. | H H |
| 916 | Bank shots | Take any headline, verbatim, appearing anywhere in The Post or on washingtonpost.com from April 22 through May 2 and reinterpret it by adding a "bank head," or subtitle. | H H |
| 914 | Foaling around | Breed any two of 100 of the almost 400 horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races, and name the foal. | H H H |
| 913 | Bring up the rear | Move the last letter of an existing word or name to the front of the word, and define the new term. | H 2 |
| 912 | Pair-a-phrase | Lift a word that appears inside a longer word; pair it with the original word to create a phrase; and define it. | H H |
| 904 | We move on back | Move the first letter in a word or name to the end of that word and define the resulting word. | H H H |
| 903 | Bill us now | Combine the names of two or more members of Congress as co-sponsors of a bill. | H 2 |
| 901 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem about someone who died in 2010. | H H H H 3 |
| 900 | Dear us! | Submit a "Dear Blank" letter to us instead. | H H |
| 898 | Pre-current events | Predict some humorous news event that would happen in 2011. | T P M H |
| 890 | Double-teaming | Combine the names of any two pro sports teams -- even from different sports -- and describe the result. | H H H |
| 882 | Limerixicon VII | Supply a humorous limerick prominently featuring any English word, name or term beginning with the letters dr-. | H |
| 881 | What's in a name? | Take the name of a person or institution. Find within it a hidden message. | H |
| 877 | Quipped from the headlines | Write a rhyming couplet about some matter in the news. | W H H |
| 876 | Oilies but goodies | Write lyrics somehow related to the oil spill, set to an existing tune. | H |
| 872 | Har Monikers | Combine the first parts of each word in a famous person's or character's name -- in order -- and define it or use it in a sentence that somehow refers to its source. | H 4 |
| 871 | Remarquees | Change a movie title by one letter (or number, if the title includes a number) and describe the new film. | H H |
| 868 | Count the ways | Give us some musings of a technical wonk. | I |
| 866 | Natalie Portmanteau | Begin with a real name; append to it a word, name or expression so that they overlap; and finally define (humorously, of course) the resulting phrase. | H H |
| 855 | The news could be verse | Sum up an article (or even an ad!) in any Washington Post print or online edition from Feb. 6 through Feb. 15 in verse. | H |
| 852 | Small, Let's get | Write a rhopalic sentence (or fanciful newspaper headline) in which each successive word is one letter shorter. | H |
| 850 | Dead letters | Write a humorous poem about someone who died in 2009. | W H H H 3 |
| 833 | Our Greatest Hit | Start with a real word or multi-word term or name that begins with M, N, O, or P; add one letter, subtract one letter, replace one letter or transpose two adjacent letters; and define the new word. | H H |
| 829 | Limerixicon 6 | Supply a humorous limerick prominently featuring any English word, name or term beginning with the letters di-. | H H H H 3 |
| 826 | The Inside Word | Take any word -- this may include the name of a person or place -- put a portion of it in quotation marks, and redefine the word. | H H H |
| 824 | Jestinations | Give us a slogan for any city or town. | H H 3 |
| 823 | Wryku | Compose a humorous (or at least wry or clever) haiku. | H H H H H 4 |
| 819 | Art Re-View | These objects are not what they seem to be, at first glance. They are something else entirely. What are they? | W H |
| 817 | Flopflip | Reverse the first half and second half of a word or name and define the result. | H H |
| 806 | DQ Very Much | Give us a phrase or sentence that would nip a potential relationship in the bud (or elsewhere). | H |
| 803 | The Pepys Show | Write a humorous diary or journal entry for someone, famous or not, for any point in history. | H H |
| 800 | Compairison | Briefly define or sum up an existing word or short phrase, then change it very slightly and do the same with the result. | H H H |
| 799 | Send Us the Bill | Come up with legislation that, given their names, two or more freshman senators or representatives might sponsor together. | H |
| 798 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem commemorating someone who died in 2008. | H 3 |
| 796 | Sincerest Flattery | Make up a pun on a familiar name of a real of fictional person and provide a fitting description or quote. | H H H H |
| 791 | The 1K Club | Supply a chain of 20 names -- they may be names of people, places, organizations, products, etc., but they must be names -- beginning and ending with "Chris Doyle. | W |
| 785 | The Ballad Box | Write a short, humorous song somehow relating to the presidential campaign, set to a familiar tune. | H |
| 784 | Words to The Wiseacres | Give us some proverbs for 21st-century life. | H H H |
| 783 | The Shill Game | Name a celebrity or fictional character to endorse a real product or company. | P H H H H H |
| 780 | Location, Location, Location | Say how you know you're in a particular place. | W I H H |
| 779 | Gripe for the Picking | Rant about any issue that wouldn't make your top 100 for airing in The Post. | H 3 |
| 778 | Tied Games | Combine any two sports or nonathletic activities into a single sport or game. | H H |
| 777 | Limerixicon 5 | Supply a humorous limerick featuring any English word, name or term beginning with the letters da-. | M H H H H H H H 2 |
| 776 | An Act of Sunny Side | Note the silver lining in some otherwise disappointing turn of events. | H |
| 775 | Ad-dition | Combine the beginning and end of any two words appearing in any single advertisement in The Post or on washingtonpost.com, from today through Aug. 4, and then define the new word. | M H H |
| 771 | Groaner's Manuals | Come up with a humorous name for a guide or manual for, or a book about, a particular enterprise or organization. | M H H H |
| 769 | Splice Work If You Can Get It | Combine two words -- overlapping by at least two letters -- into what's known by polysyllabic types as a portmanteau word, and by the rest of us as mash word, and define it. | H |
| 767 | Questionable Journalism | Find any sentence (or a substantive part of a sentence) that appears in the Post or in an article on washingtonpost.com from May 31 through June 9 and come up with a question it might answer. | T |
| 765 | It's Doo-Dah Day | Write humorous lyrics commemorating any of the 50 states of the District, set to any of these Stephen Foster songs. | H |
| 764 | Can You Up Chuck? | Come up with entirely new and funny Chuck Norris Facts. | H |
| 762 | Look This Up in Your Funk & Wagnalls | Supply the pair of terms listed at the top of a page of any print dictionary to indicate the first and last listings on the page, and define that hyphenated term. | H H |
| 754 | Canny Similarities | Cite a humorous "uncanny similarity" between any two of the very different people listed above. | 4 |
| 753 | Hot Off The Riddle | Supply a simple riddle and both the wholesome answer and the (printable) Invitational answer. | H |
| 751 | Strike Gold | Slightly change the name of an existing or former TV show to create a program that can scab the writers' strike. | H H H H 3 |
| 750 | Hit Us With Your Best Shot: Photo Contest No. 4 | Illustrate, any way you like, any of the provided five captions with your own original photo. | T |
| 749 | Opus 266, No. 3 | Take any common word or two-word term beginning with any letter from A through H and give it a new definition. | H H H H |
| 748 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem about a well-known personage who died in 2007. | W H H H H H H H H H |
| 746 | We Err The World | Give us a motto or short slogan for any country in the world. | H H H H H |
| 743 | Picture This | Write a caption for any of these Bob Staake cartoons. | H |
| 742 | Clue Us In | Give us a whole new set of clues to a crossword puzzle penned by Ace Constructor Paula Gamache. | H H H |
| 741 | Well, What Do You Know? | Tell us what Major Life Lessons can be derived from any of these venues or situations. | T H H H 2 |
| 739 | Lies, All Lies | Give us some humorous fictional revelation about a current or past political figure. | H |
| 738 | So What's To Liken? | Take any two items from the utterly random list above and explain how they are different or how they are similar. | T H H |
| 737 | No River, No Woods | Send us a funny parody of a well-known song, with lyrics that commemorate an occasion other than Christmas or Hanukkah. | W H H |
| 736 | So, Should I Drive Like Your Brother? | Ask a car-related question that would make the Car Guys crack up. If you're not into cars, you can also post a question for advice columnist Ask Amy or etiquette columnist Miss Manners. | H |
| 735 | Look Back in Inker | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 680 through Week 731. | H H H H 3 |
| 734 | Turnaround Time | Write a rhyming couplet containing two words that are anagrams of each other. | W H H H H H |
| 733 | Just Drop It, Okay? | Drop the first letter from an actual word or term to make a new word or term, and define it. | H H H |
| 732 | The Chain Gang | Supply a chain of 25 names -- they may be names of people, places, organizations, products, etc., but they must be names -- beginning and ending with "George W. Bush. | H H |
| 731 | Doo Process | Describe for us a wildly inefficient and ridiculous way to produce or prepare an ordinary dish or beverage. | H H |
| 730 | Time-Wastes For Everyman | Describe activities that make entering The Style Invitational seem like a constructive use of one's time. | H |
| 729 | Otherwordly Visions | Take any sentence in an article or ad in The Washington Post or on washingtonpost.com from Sept. 1 through Sept. 10 and translate it into "plain English. | H H 4 |
| 727 | We Get a C-Section | Tell us some pros and cons of moving The Style Invitational to the Saturday Style section; or write us up some free promo-ad copying announcing the move. | H |
| 726 | Limerixicon 4 | Supply a humorous limerick based on any word in the dictionary beginning with cl- through co-. | H H |
| 724 | Abridged Too Far | Sum up a book, play or movie in a humorous rhyming verse of two to four lines. | H H 4 |
| 721 | Know Your Market | For any of the provided photos, supply two captions: one that would appeal to The Style Invitational and one that would appeal to the Harrisburg Patriot-News. | H |
| 720 | The Course of Humor Events | Sum up a historical event in a two-line rhyme or other clever and pithy epigram. | P |
| 719 | We Har the World | Come up with a creative name for a sports team for a town or city anywhere outside the United States. | H H H |
| 718 | Put Our Heads Together | Create a new, funny headline from the words of any headlines appearing anywhere in a single day's Washington Post (or on washingtonpost.com) | H H H H H |
| 716 | The Hard Spell | Write a humorous poem featuring one of the 75 words we've selected from this year's National Spelling Bee. | W H H H H H H H H |
| 714 | Amalgamated Steal | Merge two or more company or product names into a new, ORIGINAL company or product. | H |
| 708 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Breed any two from a list of 100 of the horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races and provide an appropriate name for their foal. | H H H H 2 |
| 707 | What Would YOU Do? | Use only the words appearing in "The Cat in the Hat" to create your own work of "literature" of no more than 75 words. | H H H |
| 706 | Questionable Journalism | Take any sentence that appears in The Post or in an article on washingtonpost.com from March 24 through April 2 and come up with a question it could answer. | H 2 |
| 705 | Simile Outrageous | Come up with funny analogies, perhaps with some 21st-century references. | H H H |
| 704 | Another Game of Tag | Create vanity plates for well-known people, real or fictional. | H H H H H H |
| 703 | Freak Trade Agreements | Think of one thing to trade for another, and supply a short and funny explanation. | H |
| 702 | Unreal Facts | Come up with a comically false factoid. | H H H H |
| 700 | Stump Us | Come up with someone's slogan for the 2008 presidential campaign. | H |
| 699 | Our Greatest Hit | Take a word, term or name that begins with E, F, G or H; either add one letter, subtract one letter, replace one letter, or transpose two letters; and define the new word. | W H H H H H H 4 |
| 698 | Let's Get Personnel | Send us some humorously creative questions that a job interviewer would ask an applicant, or some questions it might be fun to ask the interviewer. | H H |
| 697 | We Beg You To Differ | Take any two items from the truly random provided list and explain why they are different or why they are similar. | H |
| 695 | Dead Letters | Write a poem about someone who died in 2006. | H H H H H |
| 694 | Hopelessly Ever After | Offer up a gloomy interpretation of any ungloomy piece of writing. | H H 2 |
| 693 | Everything Being Sequel | Give a brief scenario for the sequel to a well-known movie. | H H |
| 692 | Reinkernation | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 640 through Week 688. Every entry must include the word "three" or "third" or a creative variation. | H H 3 |
| 691 | Haven't Got a Clue | Make all the clues in the provided crossword ooh-clever or at least ah-that's-funny, even the little words. | H H |
| 690 | Funnies: How Time Flies | Pull Billy of "The Family Circus" -- or any of his comic strip neighbors in The Washington Post -- out of his time warp to a different age, era or place, and provide a short storyline or dialogue or caption. | H H |
| 688 | Making Short Work | Write a humorous six-word story. | H |
| 687 | Whatever Were They Thinking? | Tell us (A) What someone might say in some situation, and (B) what that person was actually thinking when he said A. | L |
| 686 | It's Baaaaack! | Explain why you, or anyone else in particular, ought to have this fine oil-on-panel by Fred Dawson of Beltsville, or what it might be used for. | H |
| 685 | Thank it Over | Tell us some things to be thankful for. | L |
| 684 | Backtricking | Spell a word backward and define the result, somehow relating the definition to the original word. | H |
| 683 | What a Piece of Work | String together words in a single scene, or two consecutive scenes, of "Hamlet" to produce one or more funny sentences, preferably unrelated to the original content. The words must appear in the order in which they appear in the play. | H H |
| 681 | Ticket to Write | Write a jingle for a business (or its product), organization or government agency, set to a Beatles song. | H H H 2 |
| 679 | Ask Backwards | Here are the answers. You supply the questions to as many as you dare. | H H |
| 677 | The News Gets Verse | Sum up wittily in verse -- but not a limerick -- any article appearing in The Post or on washingtonpost.com from Aug. 28 through Sept. 4. | T H H H H H 2 |
| 675 | Cut Us Some Slack | Come up with humorous ways to be lazy. | H |
| 674 | Limerixicon 3 | Supply a humorous limerick based on any word in the dictionary (except proper nouns) beginning with ca-. | H H H H H H 3 |
| 673 | Mess With Our Heads | Take any headline, verbatim, appearing anywhere in The Washington Post or on Washingtonpost.com from July 30 through Aug. 7 and reinterpret it by adding either a "bank headline," or subtitle, or the first sentence of an article that might appear under it. | H H 4 |
| 672 | Just Sign This | Write a funny message for an overhead highway sign. | T M H H |
| 671 | Join Now! | Hyphenate the beginning and end of any two multi-syllabic words appearing anywhere in the July 16 Style or Sunday Arts section, and then define the compound. | T H H H H H |
| 670 | A Test of Character | Change a word or phrase by only one letter -- substitute one letter for another, add a letter or transpose two letters -- and explain how they are different or similar. | L L H H H 4 |
| 669 | Huddled Messes | Suggest some bad advice for new arrivals to this country (legal or illegal). | H |
| 668 | Cut From the Chase | Write an original John-Bunnell-style wrap-up to a crime story -- or one for a more minor transgression. | L H |
| 667 | Questionable Journalism | Take any sentence that appears in The Post or in an article on washingtonpost.com anytime from now through June 26 and supply a question it could answer. | H H H H H 2 |
| 666 | Bedevil Us | Give a mini-sermon explaining how some innocuous object or event signals the End of Days. | W H H |
| 665 | Your One-in-a-Million | Coin the millionth word in the English language and define it. The word must end in -ion. | H H H H H |
| 663 | Worth at Least a Dozen Words | Interpret any of the provided cartoons as you see fit in a caption. | H |
| 661 | Name Any Good Movies Lately? | Give us a funny new title for an existing movie. | L H H |
| 660 | Foaling Down: The Next Generation | Breed any two of the winning "offspring" included in this week's results, and name THEIR foal. | H H |
| 659 | Tell Us a Fib | Compose a six-line poem with the following number of syllables per line: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. It must be about a person or topic currently in the news, and two successive lines must rhyme. | W H H |
| 658 | Not in the Cards | Send us ideas for cards that would likely be ruled "FBN" (Funny, But No) by Hallmark but F&YYY by the Empress. | H H |
| 656 | It's Post Time | Breed any two from a list of 100 of the more than 400 3-year-old racehorses nominated for this year's Triple Crown races, and name their hypothetical foal. The foal's name cannot exceed 18 characters and spaces combined. | H H H |
| 655 | Laughing Inside | Take any article appearing in The Washington Post or online on washingtonpost.com from today through April 3 -- the more serious and/or mundane its headline, the better -- and write a funny poem or other passage using only words that appear in that article. | H |
| 654 | It Plays to Recycle | Come up with funny ways to recycle things, people, writing (except for your old Invitational entries) or ideas. | L H |
| 653 | It's the Eponymy, Stupid | Coin a word or expression based on the name of a well-known person, define it, and perhaps use it in a sentence | H H H 4 |
| 652 | Ask Backward | You are on "Jeopardy!" Above are the answers. You supply the questions. | P H H |
| 651 | Show Us Some Character | Add a character to a book or movie and tell us what happens in it. | H 4 |
| 650 | King Us | Give us a scenario for a horror novel based on an everyday item. | T H |
| 649 | Across the Wide What? | Give us some Virginia-appropriate lyrics for "Shenandoah. | H H |
| 648 | Caller IDiot | Name a product or company and supply a stupid question to ask the consumer hotline person. | H H H |
| 647 | Paste Imperfect | Change a headline or sentence that appears in the Post or on washingtonpost.com through Feb. 6 either by deleting up to 40 consecutive characters from it or by adding 40 consecutive characters from the same article or ad. | H H H H H H |
| 646 | Warped Perspectives | Tell us how two different types of people, animals, organizations, etc., would interpret any of the provided cartoons. | H H 2 |
| 645 | A Hearty Har Har | Write up a Valentine's sentiment to any personage, or to someone in some generic category. | H H H 3 |
| 644 | Winter Limp Picks | Brighten up the Winter Olympics with some new events and rules. Alternatively, you can suggest a commercial or ad campaign that could be tied in with the Winter Games or one of its sports. | H H H H 3 |
| 643 | The Post's Mortems | Give us a rhyming poem about some notable who died in 2005. | W H H H H H H H |
| 642 | It's Open Season | Come up with a brand-new word and its definition. The words must begin with O, P, Q, R or S. | H H H H H |
| 641 | Dreck of All Trades | Come up with a business that combines two or more disparate products or services, and tell us its name and/or something else funny about it. | H H H H H |
| 640 | Whassa Motto Wid You? | Give us a slogan or motto for any of the states, the District or the U.S. Territories. | L H |
| 639 | What's the Small Idea? | Do you have a senseless idea for improving the day-to-day lives of everyday Americans? | H |
| 638 | The Little Bummer Boy | Come up with an idea (and title, if you like) for an original Christmas movie or TV special that provides an antidote to all the sap, and give us a brief synopsis. | H H |
| 637 | Full Steam Ahead | Write a steamy passage of a novel that's ostensibly by some well-known person who isn't a novelist. | H 2 |
| 636 | A Song From Tex Arcana | Write a verse of a song about sea urchin sushi or any of the other provided ostensibly unlyrical topics. | W I |
| 635 | I've Told You a Hundred Times | Enter any Style Invitational from Week 536 to Week 631. Your entry must be substantially different from the original winners. | T H H H 3 |
| 634 | Mess With Our Heads | Take any headline, verbatim, appearing anywhere in The Post or on washingtonpost.com from today through next Sunday, and change its meaning by adding either a "bank headline," or subtitle, or the first sentence of an article that might appear under it. | H H H |
| 633 | Your Secret Here! | Send us some original secrets (they don't have to be true). | H |
| 632 | Live On, Sweet, Earnest Reader (Inc.) | Give us an original backronym for a company or product. A backronym is a fake etymology that often gets in a little dig at the subject. | H H H 2 |
| 631 | Picture This | What's going on in any of these cartoons? | T H H H |
| 630 | Hyphen the Terrible | Combine the beginning and end of any two multisyllabic words in this week's Invitational, and then define the compound. | H H H H |
| 629 | Odd Couplings | Marry or otherwise combine famous names and supply the result. | H H H H |
| 628 | You Gotta Have Connections | Choose any two or more items from the provided truly random list and describe how they are alike or different. | H H H 4 |
| 627 | Per-Verse | Write a limerick or other short poem with comically awful rhyming. | T H H |
| 626 | Course Light | Come up with a comical college class, along with a description for the course catalog. | H |
| 625 | Haven't Seen It | Make up a new plot for an existing movie title. | H H |
| 624 | Limerixicon 2 | Supply a limerick based on any word in the dictionary (except proper nouns) beginning with bd- through bl-. | H H H 4 |
| 623 | Try to Remember | Give us an original mnemonic for any list that someone might want to remember. | H |
| 622 | Our Sunday Constitutional | Write a new article or amendment to the Constitution, using on the words contained in the existing document (including amendments). | T H H H H H |
| 621 | Questionable Journalism | Take any sentence that appears in The Post or in an article in washingtonpost.com anytime through Aug. 8 and supply a question it could answer. | H H H H H 2 |
| 620 | Keep the Empress Employed | Suggest some original, creative ways that The Post could increase its circulation. | H H H |
| 619 | WordCount Us In | Write a poem of no more than four lines containing four or more consecutive words on the WordCount list. They must occur in the sentence in the order they appear on the list. | R H 2 |
| 618 | Of D.C. I Sing | Give us a song about Washington, set to a recognizable tune. | H H H H 2 |
| 617 | Best the Best | Write something about any famous personage that uses only the letters in his or her name. | H H H H H H 2 |
| 616 | Picture This, Kids | Supply title and one-sentence synopsis for Bob Staake new kids' project, incorporating any of the provided cartoons. | T H |
| 615 | Airy Persiflage | Write some jokes you'd like to hear in an airport announcement. | H H |
| 614 | In-Stock Characters | Pitch us an idea for a summer movie featuring two or more of the provided characters. | W H |
| 613 | Tour de Fours II | Create and define a word that includes, consecutively, E, R, A and N. in any order. | H H 3 |
| 612 | Oh, and One More Thing | What was the thing that didn't make the cut on any list? | H |
| 611 | Ask Backwards, Erudite Edition | You are on "Jeopardy!" Here are the sophisticated answers. You supply the questions. | L H H H H |
| 610 | MASH | Find two well-known movies, plays, or TV shows whose title have a significant word in common, combine their titles, and describe the hybrid. | H 2 |
| 609 | A2D2 | Give us some funny "corrections" to brighten up Page A2. | T H 3 |
| 608 | Comeback Next Week | Come up with original snide retorts to various rude questions or comments. | H H H |
| 607 | Contest Fodder Created! | Produce absurdly parochial views of historical events. | H |
| 606 | The News Could be Verse | Translate the fine prose of Washington Post articles into verse. Choose any article appearing in The Post of on its Web site from April 17 through April 25. | W L H H H H H |
| 605 | Truly Stupendous Ideas | Name two people with the same initials (the people can be living or dead, real or fictional) and explain how they are similar or different. | N I H H H H H H |
| 604 | Fun for the Roses | Breed any two of the horses on a list of those qualifying for this year's Triple Crown races, and tell us a good name for their foal. The name of the foal must be no more than 18 characters, including spaces. | H H |
| 603 | Sui Genesis | Take one or two of the 50 chapters of the KJV Book of Genesis and draw thou from them, using words in the order in which they appear in the original, your own passage. | H H |
| 602 | Take a Letter -- Again | Take a word, term or name that begins with A, B, C or D; either add one letter, subtract one letter, replace one letter, or transpose two letters; and define the new word. | H H H H H H H 2 |
| 601 | Anticdotes | Give us an untrue anecdote in response to one of the provided Editor's Query topics. | H |
| 600 | Top of the Inking | Tell us some ways the District of Columbia will change now that we have the Nationals. | H 3 |
| 599 | So What's the News? | Tell us what the illustrated events are. | W T H H H H |
| 598 | Site Gags | Come up with an appropriate name for a cafeteria--or meeting room, or an employee lounge, or some other workplace spot--for a particular institution. | L H H H H H |
| 596 | Take Her Words for It | Use the words of this week's Ask Amy advice column, as a pool from which to compose your own useful (or useless) thoughts. You may ignore or change capitalization or punctuation. | H H H |
| 595 | Listing Precariously | Take the two subject listings at the top of any page of the Yellow Pages and create a dictionary definition for the compound word they form. | H H H H 5 |
| 594 | History Loves Company | Name an appropriate corporate sponsor for some historical event or for someone's life story. | H H |
| 593 | Take This, Job, and . . . | Come up with some entertainingly awful things that a Job's comforter might offer. A Job's comforter is someone who seems to be offering sympathy but instead just makes the person feel worse, either intentionally or unintentionally. | H |
| 592 | We Got Gamy | Offer us a concise idea for a Super Bowl commercial, or some innovative halftime entertainment, or some inappropriate sponsors, or some ideas for improving the game itself. | I H |
| 591 | Dead Letters | Write rhyming poems about notable personages who have died in the past year. | W H H |
| 590 | Send Us the Bill | Come up with a bill sponsored by any combination of the newly elected members of Congress and explain the purpose of the bill. | H H H 2 |
| 589 | Hyphen the Terrible (New Edition!) | Combine the beginning of any multi-syllabic word in this week's Invitational with the end of any other multi-syllabic word in this column (or in this week's Web supplement) to coin a new word, and then define it. | H H 3 |
| 587 | The B-List | Come up with an In-Out list for 2005, or other pairings. | H H H H |
| 586 | God's Will (and Won't) | Complete either of the following: "If God hadn't wanted us to ----, God wouldn’t have ----"; "If God had wanted us to ----, God would have ----. | 2 |
| 585 | It's Parody Time | Offer, in the holiday spirit of goodwill, some advice--as constructive and unifying as Loserly suggestions always are--to our nation's leaders (or the loyal opposition) as we prepare for the next four years. This advice will be set to the tune of some winter holiday song, either religious or secular. | H H H H |
| 584 | Deliver Us a Post | Come up with some new Cabinet or other positions that the president could establish, and describe the job responsibilities. | H |
| 583 | Mess With Our Heads | Take any headline, verbatim, from the Washington Post or its Web site from today through next Sunday, and reinterpret it by writing either a "bank headline"--or subtitle--or the first sentence of an article that changes the original meaning entirely. | H H H H H |
| 582 | Perversery Rhymes | Update a nursery rhyme or children's song with an edgier text. | H |
| 580 | United Nations | Combine the names of any two countries in the world and describe the new hybrid country. | W H H H H H H |
| 579 | Another Brilliant Contest! Do Enter! | Write us a sentence or phrase consisting of words beginning with consecutive letters, in the A-to-Z direction. | H |
| 578 | Ask Backwards | You are on "Jeopardy!" Above are the answers. Send us the questions. | T H H 3 |
| 577 | Teledubbies | Slightly change the title of a TV show, past or present, and describe it. | H H H |
| 576 | Well, Excuuuuse Us! | Come up with new excuses for any common human shortcoming or imperfection. | H H |
| 575 | T Hee Hee | Come up with new ideas for both front and back of the Loser T-shirts. | W H |
| 574 | Boor Us Silly | Come up with some unwise attempts at humor--one either likely to backfire or to create other unpleasant consequences. | 3 |
| 573 | Thine Ad Goest Here | Propose biblical and other literary passages, poems, etc., that could benefit from product placement. | H H |
| 572 | The Limerixicon | Supply a limerick based on any word in the dictionary (except proper nouns) beginning with ai- through ar-. | W H H H H H H H |
| 571 | A Tour de Fours | Create and define a word that includes T, H, E, and S in any order. The letters must appear consecutively. | H H H H |
| 570 | Timeline Rhyme Lines | Produce colorful chronological couplets about some historical event. They must rhyme and be in good meter. | H H H H H H 3 |
| 569 | Murphy's Lore | Give Eric Murphy advice he deserves on the provided questions. | H H H |
| 568 | Tome Deftness | Make a pun or similar wordplay on a book title. | T |
| 567 | A Running Gag | Explain how any of the provided bizarre cartoons by Bob Staake relates to the current presidential campaign. | H H |
| 566 | Get Whack | Type a two-word phrase into the Google search engine that produces exactly one result. | H H H H |
| 565 | Anthem Is as Anthem Does | Give us a verse for an alternative U.S. national anthem, set to any well-known tune. | 4 |
| 564 | Redefine Print | Redefine any word from the dictionary. | H |
| 563 | Take Two | Take any two of the provided items and explain how they resemble or differ from each other. | H H H |
| 562 | The LMNs of Style | Write a funny sentence (or more) that you spell with only the sounds of the names of letters and those of numbers 1 through 9. | H |
| 561 | Deform of a Question | Take any sentence appearing in The Washington Post or washingtonpost.com today through June 14, and make up a question to which the sentence could be an answer. | H H H H H A 7 2 |
| 560 | The 97.5-Meter Dash | Suggest some time- and cost-saving measures so the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens will open on time. | H H |
| 559 | Your Slogan Here | Come up with a clever slogan or sign for a business. | H H |
| 558 | Set Us Right | Send us conservative-leaning humor in any of the provided genres. | H |
| 557 | Oh, for Namesakes! | Take two people, real or fictional, who share some element of their names and explain the difference between them. | W H H H |
| 556 | So Zoo Us | Combine any two kinds of animals, give its name and describe it. | H H |
| 555 | A Tsk, A Task | Come up with a super-wholesome passage of 25 words or fewer that would likely be banned by the admirable, ever-vigilant Neopets.com site. | H |
| 554 | Love the Tiny Tail Stain | Write an anagram based on a name or event that's been in the news recently. | H H 2 |
| 553 | Picture This | Tell us what's going on in one or more of the provided cartoons. | H |
| 552 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Breed any two of the horses on a list of those qualifying for this year's Triple Crown races, and tell us a good name for their foal. Maximum 18 characters, including spaces. | H H |
| 551 | Lost in Translation | Find us some comical translations-and-back using Google translator. Feed some passage of English text into the tool--25 words max--and ask it to translate it into one of the five languages offered; then copy the result back into the tool and ask it to translate that back to English. | H 5 |
| 549 | Show Us Your Best Quantities | Come up with novel units of measure, and explain or quantify them. | H H |
| 548 | Inklings | Tell us about certain people's childhood experiences and behaviors that hint at their destinies. | H H 5 |
| 547 | Give Us a Bad Name | Take an existing product or business name and pair it with an incompatible one. | T H |
| 546 | A Nice Pair of Cities | Choose any two or more real U.S. towns and come up with a joint endeavor they would undertake. | H H H H H H H H 2 |
| 545 | Put It in Reverse | Spell a word backward and define it, with the definition relating in some way to the original word. | H H |
| 544 | You Gotta Have Heart | Write us some valentine sentiments from one particular person (real or fictional) to another. | H 2 |
| 542 | Discombobulate Us | Come up with both an object/situation and a neologism for it, something that Bob Levey would never have stooped to print in his column. | H |
| 541 | Celled Up the River | Give us a delicious scenario, in which a cellphone yakker's yakking could be taken profitably out of context. | 5 |
| 540 | Revisionist History, or Badenov for You? | State any news event (or old event) in the style of the Rocky-and-Bullwinkle teasers about the next show. | H H 2 |
| 539 | Dead Letters | Pay tribute in verse to someone who died in 2003. | H H H H |
| 538 | Try, Try Again | Enter any previous Invitational. Your entry must be substantially different from the original winners. | H H |
| 537 | The New York Post | Liven up any article appearing in The Washington Post or its Web site over the next eight days by giving it an irresponsibly sensationalistic headline. | H |
| 536 | And the Horse He Rodin On | Come up with some words we can stick in the back of The Inker. | H H |
| 535 | Picture This | Can you tell us what astonishing news Bob Staake is trying to pass on with cartoons? | H H |
| 534 | The Feminine Touch | Propose how any male-dominated occupation or institution would change if it suddenly became female-dominated. | H H H H 2 |
| 533 | Breed Apart | Mate the clones of any two famous real people, living or dead--a male and a female, please--and hypothesize what traits or skills their offspring might have. | H H H |
| 532 | Short Pans | Come up with a terse review (four words or fewer) of any work of art. | H H H |
| 530 | Tri Harder | Take any word, alter it in three ways--by adding a letter, by subtracting a letter and by changing a letter--and redefine all three new words. | W H H H |
| 529 | United We Stanza | Summarize in four rhyming lines of verse any famous document, theory, principle or speech. | W H H H H H |
| 528 | Ask Backwards | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? | H H H 3 |
| 527 | Rite of First Defusal | Come up with witty or bizarre things to say to defuse the tension in awkward moments. | H H |
| 526 | Conventional Wisdumb | Answer any of the provided questions. | T H H 2 |
| 525 | It Won't Belong Now | Tell us which of three cartoons provided does not belong, and why. | T H H H |
| 524 | Around Things Moving | Take the title of any book or movie, rearrange the words, and explain what the new book or movie is about. | H H 4 |
| 523 | Hard to Overstate | Propose ways to make modern life just a little bit harder than it needs to be. | T H 2 |
| 521 | Hyphen the Terrible | Take the first half of any hyphenated word in today's Washington Post (or Tuesday's USA Today) and combine it with the second half of any other hyphenated word in the same story, and define the new word it produces. | H H 3 |
| 520 | I, Object | These items were ordered by well-known people. Who ordered them, and why? | W H |
| 519 | Hey, Baby, What's Your Sector? | Come up with pickup lines that could be heard only in Washington. | H H |
| 518 | Say, Kids, What Time Is It? | Fill in the blanks in the following sentence: "You know it's time to ------ when ------. | H H H |
| 517 | Insert Joke Here | Slip a single bogus sentence into next year's State of the Union address, figuring the Prez will probably just read it right off the teleprompter. | H H |
| 516 | Err Apparent | Come up with unwise things to say in any of the provided circumstances. | H H H |
| 515 | A Cellebration of Tasteful Living | Come up with ways that Martha Stewart can prettify and improve her new prison surroundings using only her skills, her impeccable taste and those resources available to her. | H H |
| 514 | Ask Backwards | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are your answers. What are the questions? | H |
| 512 | Live On, Sweet, Earnest Reader | Take the name of any person--living, dead, fictional--and use the letters of his name, in succession, to form the first letters of an expression appropriate to that person. | H H H H |
| 511 | It All Impends | Tell us what is something unusual about to happen in the provided cartoons. | H 3 |
| 510 | Universal Embarrassment | What would you like to see Miss Universe Pageant contestants asked live, on national TV? | H 2 |
| 509 | Be a Real Card | Come up with a greeting card rhyme for an un-greeting-card occasion. | H 4 |
| 508 | Letter Rip | Take a word from the dictionary, add, change, or delete a single letter, and redefine the word. | H |
| 506 | The Battle of All Mottoes | Provide a slogan for any federal department agency, department, office, etc. | W H |
| 503 | Doody and Muldoon | Write poetry that out-Muldoons Paul Muldoon, the Princeton professor who won this year's Pulitzer Prize in poetry. Your poem must be a single quatrain, containing at least one rhyme and references to at least two body parts and one geographic name. | H |
| 501 | Questionable Sentences | Take any sentence appearing anywhere in today's Washington Post and make it the answer to a question. | H H H H |
| 497 | Ask Backward | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? | H 5 4 |
| 496 | The Style Invitational: The First Dreckade | Submit new entries to any of the old contests listed, and try to beat The Very Best of the Past 10 Years. | H H |
| 495 | Words of One Syl- . . . Um, Just Short Words | Take some complex issue of any sort and explain it to all us morons entirely in words of one syllable. | H H |
| 492 | Cheap Tricks | Come up with extreme cost-conserving measures for these difficult economic times. | H |
| 483 | Obitter Fate | Give us an obit headline for some famous person, currently living or dead. | H |
| 474 | Alphabettering | Create a sentence that uses each letter of the alphabet at least once but that would never be heard on the politically correct, genteel, rarefied air of NPR. | H |
| 470 | Czar Har | Take the name of someone famous, rhyme it with a product, and describe the unholy union. | W H |
| 453 | Haiku 2 U2 | Write a haiku summarizing the career of any American politician, living or dead. A haiku is generally defined as a nonrhyming poem, of three lines. The first and last lines are five syllables; the middle line is seven. | H |
| 412 | Painful Climaxes | Come up with statements that start really dramatically, but leave you sorta flat at the end. | H |
| 383 | A Kinder, Gender Nation | Take an noun and give us a reason or two why it should be either masculine or feminine. | H |
| 375 | Show Us Up | Combine the names of two existing TV shows (past or present) to make an entirely new show. Then, describe the show. | H 5 |
| 315 | FERMENTING TROUBLE | Write a rhyming poem, eight lines maximum, on the subject of cheese or any of the provided items. | H |
| 312 | BOOKS AND BOOKS | Combine any two works of literature--no movies or TV--into one, give its title and describe it in a brief, appealing blurb that might appear in Publishers' Weekly. | H |
| 308 | GIVE US NO MO | Write an updated version of those old children's selecting rhymes. Your rhyme must (1) rhyme and (2) conform, at least loosely, to a point-and-shoot cadence that permits the elimination of one item from a group. | H |
| 307 | IF YOU BOYCOTT THIS TASK / YOU WON'T WIN THE FLASK | Come up with rhyming couplets to warn us about the perils of modern life. | H |
| 245 | LIKE FUN | Complete any of the provided "A is like B because" sentences. | H |
| 195 | THE MARTHIAN CHRONICLES | Come up with items for Martha Stewart's December-January calendar of projects. | H |