PERMANENT INKSTAIN FOR CECIL CLARK

This is what you've done, each Week. I arrange the rows in reverse chronological order, because there are some Losers, and they know who they are, who check up on my points-awarding every Week.

But I would just like to reiterate that such checking up is not a problem for me. I have said many times that each Loser's enlightened self-interest is my best QA.

If you wish to see what your ink was, refer to the Master Contest List or search All Invitational Text. Remember that Types I, P, some H, and sometimes A are seen "above the Report" -- that is, if they are listed here for Week 7777, for example, they will be found in text files or images of Week 7777. Everything else will be found in a "Report" section of a file two, three, or four weeks later; 7781 in this Example.

If you see any error, please let me know, elden.carnahan@gmail.com.

Key to Ink Types:

WKTITLESYNOPSISINK TYPES
669 Huddled Messes Suggest some bad advice for new arrivals to this country (legal or illegal). H
663 Worth at Least a Dozen Words Interpret any of the provided cartoons as you see fit in a caption. H
662 How Low Will You Go? Humiliate yourself for ink, and a stupid prize. H
657 Nuts Fruit Send in funny (but printable) images of real pieces of fruit. H
650 King Us Give us a scenario for a horror novel based on an everyday item. 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
646 Warped Perspectives Tell us how two different types of people, animals, organizations, etc., would interpret any of the provided cartoons. H
639 What's the Small Idea? Do you have a senseless idea for improving the day-to-day lives of everyday Americans? H 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
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
607 Contest Fodder Created! Produce absurdly parochial views of historical events. 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. 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. 1
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
578 Ask Backwards You are on "Jeopardy!" Above are the answers. Send us the questions. H
563 Take Two Take any two of the provided items and explain how they resemble or differ from each other. H
559 Your Slogan Here Come up with a clever slogan or sign for a business. H
550 Spring Cleaning Suggest creative uses for things you've already used, or never will use, or other disposable household thingies, singly or in combination. H
536 And the Horse He Rodin On Come up with some words we can stick in the back of The Inker. H
532 Short Pans Come up with a terse review (four words or fewer) of any work of art. H
500 Ergo-Nomics Create a sillygism--a syllogism that doesn't quite work. H
493 A Major Offensive Find something anywhere in today's Washington Post and complain about it with absurd oversensitivity. W
468 Ism This Stupid? Take any common prefix and attach it to any well-known "ism" and define the new term. H
462 Cast Away Come up with a terrible bit of miscasting in a movie or TV show, past or present, real or imagined. H

MOST OF YOUR INK

Here is, I hope, most of your ink to be found in the All Invitational Text list. I have to find these with what are called regular expressions, which is a method used in a lot of programming languages to find and modify certain text strings in larger corpora. Basically I look for something like this:

"Report From Week 758"

or

"And from The Style Invitational four weeks ago . . ."

and then some text, your name, and your town, arranged in this familiar way:

"GlaxoSmithKline: I have six kids named Chesterfield, Winston, Lark, BensonHedges, Doral and Kool. If I name my new baby Nicorette, can I get a free coupon for your products? (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)"

I don't catch everything, but I believe I find 90%.

Unlike in the table to the left, I've arranged these in chronological order, so you can see how your humor matured, like a forgotten cheese deep in the walls of an old house. You started out, perhaps in Year 1, sending in riddles you sort of remembered from grade school, and now look at ya, ain't you Dorothy Parker.





[still working on this ...]