WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
---|---|---|---|
1175 | Good luck with 13 | Make up a word whose Scrabble letter values add up to exactly 13, and define it. | H |
1173 | Tinker with the recipe | Slightly change the name of a food or brand of food (or something else in the food industry) and describe it, or write a slogan, jingle, etc. | H H |
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 H H H H |
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 2 |
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. | H |
1132 | You and what army? Military fictoids | Give us some comically bogus trivia about the military, past or present, ours or theirs. | H |
1125 | The song remains the sa | Supply a real song title that has the end or beginning -- or, what the heck, both -- chopped off and describe it. | 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 |
1116 | Punning in place | Create a new term using only the letters in a place name. You don't have to use all the letters, but you can't use a letter more often than it appears in the word. | I |
1112 | Some SHARP words | Coin a word or short term that includes all the letters S, H, A, R, and P. | H H |
1111 | When you riff upon a store | Use a wordplay on a song title as a name or slogan for a real or imagined business. | 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 |
1103 | Themes good enough for us | Suggest an existing song to be used as the theme for a TV series or program for comic effect. | H H 4 |
1101 | The year in redo | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 1047 through Week 1097, except for Week 1050. | H H |
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 |
1094 | TAXI's the fare for Tour de Fours XI | Coin a word or hyphenated term that contains the letter block T-A-X-I; the letters may be in any order, but there may be no other letters between them. | H |
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-". | H |
1080 | McGonagall with the windiness | Memorialize a modern "tragedy" in a poem burdened with hilariously overwrought verse; lame, forced rhymes; and painfully uneven meter. Get the badness across in one verse of no more than eight lines. | H |
1079 | Little piddle riddle | Ask a question and answer it with a rhyme. | H H H |
1078 | Hyphen the Terrible | Combine one side of any hyphenated word or compound term with one side of another word to make a new hyphenated term, and define it humorously. Both halves must appear in the same issue of The Post or another print newspaper, or in writing published the same day on washingtonpost.com or another online publication. | H |
1076 | Dactyly fractyly | Send us some double dactyls that conform to Gene Weingarten's rules. | H |
1075 | Falsity is Job One | Send us some fictoids about cars and trucks and driving and stuff. | T |
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. | H H |
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. | H |
1071 | A pair of threes | Choose two or three entities represented by a single three-letter combination at bit.ly/3letterabs and say how they are alike or different. | H |
1068 | An iffy proposition | Suggest some humorous action that you would take if you were in someone's position, more or less in the form "If I were _____ my first act would be _____. | P I |
1066 | It's mating season | Breed" any two from the provided list of 100 of the 3-year-old racehorses nominated for this year's Triple Crown and name the foal to reflect both names. | H |
1065 | The ands have it | Slightly alter ANY well-known phrase in the form "A-and-B" -- it doesn't have to be Latinate/Anglo-Saxon -- and define it. | H |
1061 | Less taste, more fill-in | Give us a novel clue for any word or phrase in which the remaining letters in the provided crossword puzzle fit, across or down. | H |
1059 | With parens like these . . . | Add some words in parentheses to a well-known song title to make it funnier in some way. | P |
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 |
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. | H |
1050 | Just redo it | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 1000 through Week 1046. | H |
1049 | Be rating | Come up with a new movie rating and describe it. | H |
1045 | Songs for the asking | Take a sentence, phrase or title from a song and provide a funny question it might answer. | H |
1042 | Tour de Fours X: Go SANE | Create a new word or two-word term containing the letter block S-A-N-E -- in any order, but consecutively, and define it. | 3 |
1036 | Just for liffs | Use a real place name, from anywhere in the world, as a new term. | H |
1031 | The 'Sty'le Invitational | Choose any word, name, or short term; emphasize a key, suddenly pertinent part of it with quotation marks; then redefine the word. | H |
1021 | 'Gram theft | Come up with a term by scrambling any of the letters sets in the provided list, and define it. | H |
1018 | Reologisms | Write a clever, funny definition for any of the Loser-concocted neologisms from Week 1014 as well as from Week 1000 that deserve better definitions than their creators offered at the time. | H |
1016 | Foaling around | Breed any two of the horses nominated for this year's Triple Crown races and give the foal a name humorously reflecting the names of the parents. | H |
1015 | Faux re mi | Give us some humorously false trivia about music or musicians. | H H |
1013 | Har monikers | Write a riddle that uses a pun of a person's name in the answer. | H 2 |
1011 | Top these! | Try your hand at any of the contests mentioned in this look back. | H |
1008 | Switched reels | Re-arrange all the words in the title of a movie, and describe the resulting work. | H |
1007 | Clue us in | Come up with creative, funny clues for the words and multi-word terms in the provided grid. | H 4 |
1006 | It's a ... a ... | Create a new superhero (or duo) and describe the superpower, or not-very-superpower. | H |
1005 | Send us the bill | Name a piece of legislation "cosponsored" by two or more of the 98 new House and Senate members provided. | M H |
1004 | Dead letters | Write a humorous poem about anyone who died in 2012. | H H |
993 | Versus, verses | Write a short "rap battle" between any two characters, real or fictional. | H 3 |
990 | Indecent relations | Pair two people, real or fictional, who have the same last name; say how they're alike or different, or something they might do (even in fantasy), as a pair. | I H |
987 | Bank shots | Take any headline, verbatim, appearing anywhere in The Washington Post or on washingtonpost.com from Sept. 6 through Sept. 17 and reinterpret it by adding a "bank head," or subtitle. | H 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 H H H |
984 | Another brilliant contest | Write something whose words begin with consecutive letters of the alphabet. | W H |
982 | The parody line | Set your own, humorous words to the tune of a well-known song--except that you must preserve one of the original lines. | H |
979 | The madding crowd | Suggest funny, original ways to tick people off. | H |
978 | A reason to rhyme the news | Write a short verse about something that's been in the news recently. | 3 |
976 | Join now! | Combine the beginning and end of any two words or names in this week's Style Invitational or Style Conversational columns to make a new term, and define it. | 3 |
974 | Eat our dust! | Write a limerick humorously describing a book, play, movie, or TV show. | H |
972 | Trends and neighbors | Choose any two items on the provided list and explain how they are alike or different. | T I H 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. | H H |
969 | Colt following | Breed any two "foals" in today's results, and name the grandfoal. | H |
967 | Overlap dance II | Create a phrase that overlaps two terms, each of two words or more, and describe the result. | H H |
965 | Foaling around | Breed any two of the horses in this year's Triple Crown races and name their foal. | 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 H |
956 | Give us some bad ideas | Finish any of the provided "You know" phrases. | H |
952 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem about someone who died in 2011. | H H 4 |
951 | Say that again | Double a word, or use a word and its homophone, to make a phrase, and define it. | H |
948 | Look back in Inker | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 891 through 945 (except for Week 896, which was the same contest for the previous year). | H |
944 | Uh, yeah, it's just you | Give us one or more "Is it just me" questions. | H H |
942 | Singular ideas | Give us an idea for a contest for which there's likely only one good entry. | L |
941 | They don't say! | Give us a quote that a particular person, present or past, real or fictional, sooo wouldn't have said. | H |
940 | Our type o' headline | Change a headline by one letter, or switch two letters, or change spacing or punctuation, in a headline (or most of a headline) appearing on an article or ad in The Washington Post or on washingtonpost.com from Oct. 7 through Oct. 17, and elaborate on it in a "bank" headline (subhead). | H |
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 |
936 | Hoho contendere | Slightly alter a well-known foreign-language term and define it. | H |
935 | The 400 blows | Write a humorous poem--choose your form--about the Virginia earthquake, Hurricane Irene or another well-known natural event. | 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 |
925 | A remeaning task | Redefine a word in the dictionary beginning with I through O. | H |
923 | Chemical Wordfare | Create a new chemical element or other chemical term. | W |
922 | A Banner Week | Write entirely new, humorous lyrics to the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner”; they can be on any subject. | H |
921 | Give Us Willies | Write an original Little Willie poem, perhaps reflecting our current era. This is a venerable four-line genre in which Master W. does some nasty thing and doesn't tend to learn to be a Good Boy by poem's end. | H H |
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 |
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 |
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. | P H H |
908 | Recast away | Fire an actor or actress from a movie or TV show, past or present, and offer a replacement for the role. | I 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 |
903 | Bill us now | Combine the names of two or more members of Congress as co-sponsors of a bill. | 3 |
901 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem about someone who died in 2010. | W T H |
900 | Dear us! | Submit a "Dear Blank" letter to us instead. | H |
899 | Clue us in | Send us funny, clever clues for any of the words already in this grid. | H H |
889 | Tour de Fours VII | Coin and define a humorous word that includes -- with no other letters between them, but in any order -- the letters P, O, L and E. | H H |
886 | Look both ways | Give us a new term that's a palindrome and define it. | H H H |
884 | Rekindling the spork | Combine two devices or other products to make a new one. | H H |
880 | Our greatest hit | Start with a real word or multi-word term or name that begins with Q, R or S; add one letter, subtract one letter, replace one letter with another, or transpose two adjacent letters; and define the new word. | 3 |
873 | Back to Square 1A | Replace the shaded letters in this grid with your own letters to come up with a different word or phrase -- either an existing word or one you make up -- and define it humorously. | H H H |
867 | Back in the saddle | Breed any two of the foals in today's results -- OR one foal with one of the actual horses used in today's entries, and name the grandfoal. | H H H |
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. | P |
864 | Oonerspisms | Spoonerize a single word or a name by transposing different part of the word (more than two adjacent letters), and define the resultant new term. | H |
863 | It's Post time | Breed any two of 100 of the almost 400 horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races, and name the foal. | M H H H |
862 | Be cheerful | Send us a cheer or fight song for any pro sports team or any national team. | H |
861 | It's incumbent upon us | Combine the names of two or more freshman members of Congress to create "joint legislation." 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. | H |
858 | Same OED | Make up a false definition for any of the words listed below. | H |
850 | Dead letters | Write a humorous poem about someone who died in 2009. | H |
849 | Homonymphomania | Create a new homonym (or homophone) for any existing word and define it. | W |
848 | Up and addin' | Compose a humorous rhopalic sentence (or multiple sentences) in which each word is one letter longer than the previous word. | H |
845 | Reologisms | Write a description for any of 50 genuine Loser-created neologisms. | H |
843 | Prefrains | Provide a sentence or two of lead-in to the first line of a well-known book, poem, or song. | L |
841 | Food for naught | Alter the name of a food or dish slightly and describe the result. | I |
840 | Frittering away the neurons | Give us some more colorfully useful phrases; they don't have to be in the X'ing-the-Y form. | H |
839 | Overlap Dance | Overlap two words that share two or more consecutive letters -- anywhere in the word, not just at the beginning or end -- into a single longer word, and define it. AND your portmanteau word must begin with a letter from A through D. | H H H |
836 | Other People's Business | Describe what might happen if any of the above institutions (a) were run by an institution of your choice or (b) ran an institution of your choice. | 2 |
835 | Tour de Fours VI | Coin and define a humorous word that includes -- with no other letters between them, but in any order -- the letters T, H, R, and E. | H |
834 | Fractured Compounds | Combine two full words within any single article appearing in The Washington Post or on washingtonpost.com into a hyphenated compound word, and define or otherwise describe the result. | H H H |
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. | 3 |
832 | Clue Us In | You supply one or more clues for the words in a filled-in grid. | H H |
830 | Mess With Our Heads | Take any headline, verbatim, appearing anywhere in The Post or on washingtonpost.com from Aug. 14 through Aug. 24 and reinterpret it by adding a "bank head," or subtitle. | H H H |
823 | Wryku | Compose a humorous (or at least wry or clever) haiku. | H H |
817 | Flopflip | Reverse the first half and second half of a word or name and define the result. | H |
815 | Wittecisms | Create an original word containing -- in any order -- at least a W, an I, two T's and an E. | H |
814 | There Will Be Bloodline | Breed any two of the winning "offspring" included in this week's results, and name their foal. | H |
805 | Brand Eccchs | Give us an original name in any of the above categories (not an actual badly named product). | H |
804 | Our Type o' Joke | Change a headline by one letter, or switch two letters, in a headline (or most of a headline) appearing on an article or ad in The Washington Post or on washingtonpost.com between Feb. 14 and 23, and elaborate on it in a "bank" headline (subhead) or a brief first sentence of an article that would run under it. | H H 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. | I |
798 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem commemorating someone who died in 2008. | H |
797 | Be Resolute | Make a humorous resolution for some particular person or institution to accomplish next year. | W |
796 | Sincerest Flattery | Make up a pun on a familiar name of a real of fictional person and provide a fitting description or quote. | W H H |
794 | Ripped Off From the Headlines | Send us some Onion-type headlines. | H |
792 | Clue Us In | Compile a set of funny alternative clues to a crossword penned by Ace Constructor Paula Gamache. | 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. | H |
787 | Tour de Fours V | Coin and define a humorous word that includes -- with no other letters between them, but in any order -- the letters M, I, N and E. | H H |
782 | That's the Ticket! | Explain why any of the items on the list below is qualified to be President of the United States. | H H |
781 | Our Greatest Hit | Start with a word or multi-word term that begins with I, J, K or L; either add one letter, subtract one letter, replace one letter or transpose two adjacent letters; and define the new word. | H H |
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. | H |
774 | Tour De Forks | Supply a name for a restaurant dish named after someone (or some product or organization) and describe it. | 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. | H 4 |
768 | The Events Described Herein Are Entirely Fictitious | Come up with fictitious movie trivia. | 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. | H H H 3 |
764 | Can You Up Chuck? | Come up with entirely new and funny Chuck Norris Facts. | H |
763 | Another Time Around the Track | Breed any two of the winning "offspring" included in this week's results, and name THEIR foal. | H 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 |
757 | Gorey Thoughts From A to Z | Send us some rhyming alphabet-primer couplets. | H 1 |
756 | Mess With Our Heads | Take any headline, verbatim, appearing anywhere in The Post or on washingtonpost.com from March 15 through 24 and reinterpret it by adding a "bank head," or subtitle. | W H H H H |
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. | I |
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 H |
748 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem about a well-known personage who died in 2007. | H 3 |
745 | Hurry Up and Slow Down! | Suggest particular ways that would slow life down, or ways that would speed it up. | W |
742 | Clue Us In | Give us a whole new set of clues to a crossword puzzle penned by Ace Constructor Paula Gamache. | H |
741 | Well, What Do You Know? | Tell us what Major Life Lessons can be derived from any of these venues or situations. | H |
734 | Turnaround Time | Write a rhyming couplet containing two words that are anagrams of each other. | 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 |