| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1555 | Do You Have to Spell It Out for Us? | Give us "backronyms" | H |
| 1011 | Top these! | Try your hand at any of the contests mentioned in this look back. | H |
| 947 | Tour de Fours VIII: Neologisms | Come up with a new word or two-word term that includes the letter block N-O-E-L, in any order but with no other letters between them, and define it. | H |
| 943 | Ask backward XXIX | You are on "Jeopardy!" You supply the questions for as many of the provided answers as you like. | H |
| 942 | Singular ideas | Give us an idea for a contest for which there's likely only one good entry. | 3 |
| 900 | Dear us! | Submit a "Dear Blank" letter to us instead. | 3 |
| 893 | Give us a hint | Write a humorously witty story in 25 words or fewer. | H |
| 891 | Mirror, Mirror | Write a word-palindrome sentence, in which the first and last words are the same; the second and next-to-last, etc. | H H 3 |
| 850 | Dead letters | Write a humorous poem about someone who died in 2009. | H |
| 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 |
| 843 | Prefrains | Provide a sentence or two of lead-in to the first line of a well-known book, poem, or song. | H |
| 842 | Ask backwards | Here are your 12 possible answers. Tell us your joke in the form of a question, please. | H |
| 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. | W |
| 838 | Picture This | Provide a caption for any of these pictures. | H H 2 |
| 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 |
| 832 | Clue Us In | You supply one or more clues for the words in a filled-in grid. | H |
| 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 |
| 821 | Spit the Difference | How are any of the items on the list above alike or different? | H |
| 819 | Art Re-View | These objects are not what they seem to be, at first glance. They are something else entirely. What are they? | H |
| 815 | Wittecisms | Create an original word containing -- in any order -- at least a W, an I, two T's and an E. | H |
| 792 | Clue Us In | Compile a set of funny alternative clues to a crossword penned by Ace Constructor Paula Gamache. | 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 |
| 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 |
| 760 | Whacksy Buildup | Describe any of these Googlewhacks in the form of a question, "Jeopardy"-style. | H |
| 746 | We Err The World | Give us a motto or short slogan for any country in the world. | H |
| 744 | You OED Us One | Make up a humorous and false definition for any of the words listed below. | 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 |
| 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. | 4 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 722 | Let's Play Nopardy! | We supply 12 phrases and you get to provide questions they might answer. The phrases were entries in our Week 717 contest, which asked for Googlenopes -- phrases that showed no previous hits from the Google search engine. | I I |
| 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 H |
| 720 | The Course of Humor Events | Sum up a historical event in a two-line rhyme or other clever and pithy epigram. | H H |
| 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. | W H H |
| 717 | Pitch Us a No-Hitter | Send us some genuine Googlenopes. A Googlenope is a phrase or very brief sentence that, entered into the Google search engine with quotation marks around it, produces no hits. | H |
| 711 | Join Now! | Hyphenate the beginning and end of any two multi-syllabic words appearing anywhere in the April 29 or May 6 Style or Sunday Arts section, and then define the compound. | H |
| 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 |
| 705 | Simile Outrageous | Come up with funny analogies, perhaps with some 21st-century references. | H |
| 700 | Stump Us | Come up with someone's slogan for the 2008 presidential campaign. | 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 H H |
| 695 | Dead Letters | Write a poem about someone who died in 2006. | 2 |
| 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 2 |
| 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 |
| 680 | Rendered Speechless | Provide dialogue to fill the balloons in any of these cartoons. | H |
| 679 | Ask Backwards | Here are the answers. You supply the questions to as many as you dare. | W |
| 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. | H |
| 676 | Tour de Fours III | Coin and define a word containing -- with no other letters between them, but in any order you like -- the letters L, E, A and F. | H H H |
| 674 | Limerixicon 3 | Supply a humorous limerick based on any word in the dictionary (except proper nouns) beginning with ca-. | H |
| 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 |
| 672 | Just Sign This | Write a funny message for an overhead highway sign. | 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. | 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 |
| 660 | Foaling Down: The Next Generation | Breed any two of the winning "offspring" included in this week's results, and name THEIR foal. | 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 |
| 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 |
| 652 | Ask Backward | You are on "Jeopardy!" Above are the answers. You supply the questions. | 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 |
| 646 | Warped Perspectives | Tell us how two different types of people, animals, organizations, etc., would interpret any of the provided cartoons. | 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 |
| 640 | Whassa Motto Wid You? | Give us a slogan or motto for any of the states, the District or the U.S. Territories. | H H |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 631 | Picture This | What's going on in any of these cartoons? | W |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 626 | Course Light | Come up with a comical college class, along with a description for the course catalog. | H |
| 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). | 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 4 |
| 617 | Best the Best | Write something about any famous personage that uses only the letters in his or her name. | H H |