| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1592 | It's Parody Time | Write a funny song about ... anything you like! | H |
| 1586 | Pun for the Roses | Our annual crazy-popular horse 'breeding' wordplay contest. | H |
| 1583 | A Thousand Words | Write a funny poem about the artwork of your choice. | H |
| 1582 | You're Workin' on a Chain, Gang | A classic connection game. | H |
| 1564 | "Air" "Quotes" | A new forefinger contest | H |
| 1512 | Alphabetter | Write a 26-word sentence or other passage whose words each start with a different letter — except that the X in the X-word may appear elsewhere in the word, as long as the word has an “ex” syllable. | H |
| 1511 | The inside word--our 'air quote' contest | Highlight part of a word, name or short phrase in “air quotes” to give the word a new meaning or description. | H |
| 1509 | MASH MASH: combine 2 one-word movies | Combine two single-word movie titles to make a new movie and describe it. | 4 |
| 1503 | Sing of your supper--parodies about food | Write a humorous song on the subject of food. | H |
| 1501 | Try a little 'kindness' | Tell about an “act of kindness” that you or someone else does that, well, won’t be appreciated. | H |
| 1479 | It's a WordleVite! Write a prhase of 5-letter words | Write a phrase or sentence consisting of two to six five-letter words or names, then define it or say something funny about it. AND the Wordle part: once a letter is in the right, "green" place -- the same place as it is in the final word (like the P in "pouty" in the example provided) -- your subsequent words must keep those letters in their right places. | W |
| 1478 | It's a small, small world | Write a humorous poem, eight lines max, using only words from the provided list of 1,000 most common English words. | H |
| 1472 | Phony money -- tell us fake financial trivia | Tell us some fake trivia about money or the financial system. | H |
| 1468 | The Year in Redo, Part 2 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1440 through 1464. | H H 2 |
| 1466 | Be invitationally correct | Give us a funny "correction" that a newspaper or magazine might offer. | H H |
| 1464 | Picture this -- a caption contest | Write a caption, either descriptive or in dialogue, for any of the provided cartoons. | H |
| 1462 | Time for a new career? | Tell what would happen if any two people switched professions or other roles. | H |
| 1459 | And we quote: 'It's Parody Time' | Write humorous first-person lyrics for a song "by" some particular person. | 4 |
| 1451 | Could have said it worse ourselves | Give us a humorously bad "first draft" of a famous line from history, literature or entertainment. | H |
| 1450 | Putting the 'anoid' in humanoid | Humorously describe some aspect of our current society as a space alien and/or future anthropologist might interpret it. | H |
| 1440 | It's parody time! | Write a satiric song about anything in the news these days. | W |
| 1435 | Who needs Peeps when we have CICADAS? | Create a witty visual artwork that includes at least one real cicada or cicada casing (the body-shaped shell from which the insect emerges) and send us a photo of it. | 3 |
| 1432 | Turn tale and run with it | Offer a new angle on a folk tale, nursery rhyme, children's song, etc., with a short poem, mini-story (under 100 words) or song parody. | 3 |
| 1430 | Back to racing speed with the 'foals' | Breed" any two of the provided names of the 100 horses nominated for the 2021 Triple Crown races and name the "foal" to humorously play off both parents' names. | H |
| 1413 | We're finna give you some new words | Write a poem of eight lines or fewer featuring one or more of the provided terms. The terms must be used as they're defined in the new m-w.com listing. | H |
| 1394 | Two movies, one line | Cite a real or coined line, or give a description, that could work for two different movies, plays or TV shows. | I H H H H 4 |
| 1386 | Colt following: It's the grandfoals! | Breed" any two of the 70 foal names that got ink this week and name the offspring to reflect both parents' names. | H |
| 1379 | Your wish: A pun -- a star | Tell a joke, in your choice of form, whose punchline is a pun on a song title or lyric. | 4 |
| 1378 | It's (emergency) Parody Time | Write a song about life in the Age of Corona, set to a familiar tune (or even one of your own, if you perform it on video). | 2 |
| 1370 | What's in a name? | Write something about a well-known person, real or fictional, using only the letters in that person's name. | H |
| 1369 | Shoot us some oops | Tell us a concise original joke that revolves around a typo or misheard word. | 2 |
| 1368 | Picture This -- cartoon captions | Supply a caption for one or more of the provided cartoons. | H |
| 1367 | Pick me up at work, okay? | Give a pickup line from someone in a particular profession, or from a particular person or fictional character. | H |
| 1364 | Clue us in | Supply clever, funny clues for as many as 25 of the words and multi-word terms in the provided grid. | H |
| 1363 | The Year in Redo, Part 2 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1334 through Week 1359. | H H H H |
| 1359 | Back up in the air (quotes) | Write a sentence or two and highlight an "air quote" that spans two or more words (and two sentences if you like). | H |
| 1357 | It's parody time! | Write a satirical song about anything in the news right now, set to a familiar tune. | W |
| 1356 | Ask Backwards 38 | Sixteen "answers" are provided. Tell us the questions. | H |
| 1355 | The inside word | Highlight part of a word, name or short phrase in "air quotes" to give the word a new meaning or description. | W |
| 1352 | Hee-rotica -- Steamy prose for unsteamy life | Write a short steamy scene (100 words would be considered long) about a non-steamy event. | H |
| 1351 | What concept will you be for Halloween? | Give us a creative, clever idea for a timely Halloween costume (for one or more people) or an idea for a party or other activity. You may even send us a photo of an actual new costume you've created this year. | W H H |
| 1348 | Same difference | Explain humorously how any two or more of the provided items are alike, different or otherwise connected. | H |
| 1347 | Reologisms | Write a clever, funny definition for any of the provided Loser-concocted words and phrases, and/or show they'd be used. | H |
| 1345 | The confaketionary -- food fictoids | Tell us some comically false "fact" about food, drink or dining. | H H |
| 1341 | Portmanteautapping from E to R | Coin a portmanteau word beginning with E through R, in which the words overlap by at least two letters, and describe it. | H |
| 1340 | Not-ables -- slightly alter a famous name | Slightly alter the name (make sure the original is obvious) of a famous personage -- past or present, real or fictional -- and describe the resulting nonpersonage, or offer a quote from that person, or both. | H |
| 1339 | Songs for a modern error | Write humorous lyrics about some modern woe, set to a familiar tune. | H |
| 1336 | Two ways about it | What's something (printable) you could say in two -- or more -- of the provided situations. | H |
| 1335 | Put it in bee-verse! Or . . . | Write a humorous poem of eight lines or fewer that includes at least one of the provided words, used in Round 9 or later of this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee; OR: write a joke in Q&A form that uses at least one of the words. | H |
| 1333 | Check your (homo)phones | Invent a homophone--a word that sounds the same as an existing word but is spelled differently--and define it. | H H |
| 1332 | We'll call them Spellimericks | Write a humorous limerick that's an acrostic: a pertinent five-letter word or name spelled out by the first letter of each line. | W L |
| 1326 | Foaling around | Breed" any two names from the provided list of 100 horses and name the foal to reflect both names. | H H |
| 1317 | Punku 2: Haiku with puns | Create a haiku containing a pun or similar wordplay. | H |
| 1315 | Clue us in -- our reverse crossword | Supply clever, funny clues for as many as 25 of the 74 words and multi-word terms in the provided grid. | H H H H |
| 1311 | Nextra! Nextra! The year in preview | Name some humorous event to happen in 2019. | H |
| 1310 | The Year in Redo, Part 2 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1282 through Week 1306. | W |
| 1309 | The Year in Redo, Part 1 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1255 through Week 1281. | H H H H |
| 1308 | Picture this -- or these | This week you have two choices: (1) Write a caption for one or more of these pictures, or (2) explain what is wrong with the picture. You might also combine two pictures into one -- or all four into one. | H H |
| 1304 | All the muse that's fit to print | Present a "what if" scenario and explain its effect. | H |
| 1303 | Neologisms to di- for | Replace a digraph in an existing word or phrase with another digraph to make a new term. | H |
| 1302 | Ask Backwards 37 | Fifteen "answers" are provided. Tell us the questions. Do one or more, up to a total of 25 A&Q's. | H |
| 1301 | Tell us a Fib(onacci) | Write a humorous poem of 20 syllables divided among six lines like this: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. And a least two -- any two -- of the lines must rhyme. | H |
| 1299 | OK, hivemind! A contest with new Scrabble words | Choose any two of the words in the provided list as the beginning and end of a humorous word chain of 6 to 14 words or phrases. | I H H |
| 1298 | It's IGH time for 3-word phrases | Make up some entity that might take a three-letter abbreviation of GHI, HGI, GGG, GHH, etc., and then humorously describe it. | 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-". | H |
| 1289 | Fake gnus: bogus animal trivia | Tell us a fictoid -- a humorously false "fact" -- about the nonhuman animal kingdom. | H |
| 1288 | Your results may vary | Write a funny disclaimer or warning for some product or service. | H |
| 1282 | Picture This | Write a caption for one or more of the provided pictures. | H |
| 1281 | We only have (googly) eyes for you | Send us a photo of something that you have made funny by pasting googly eyes on it; funny titles and captions are optional. | W |
| 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 |
| 1278 | Colt following: The 'grandfoals' | Breed" any two of the 68 foal names that got ink this week, and name the offspring to reflect both parents' names, in the style of today's inking entries. | H H 3 |
| 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. | H |
| 1274 | Heading for a foal -- our horse name 'breeding' contest | Your job is to "breed" any two names of the 360 horses nominated for this year's Triple Crown races and name the "foal" to reflect both names. | H |
| 1273 | Restocking the Cabinet | Explain why a particular person -- or thing -- ought to fill a Cabinet post or other U.S. government position. | H H |
| 1268 | Playing pinocchio | Tell us some humorously bogus trivia about the news media or the publishing or broadcasting industries. | H |
| 1265 | Parody for the course | Write a song relating to a class or course of instruction, or to school in general. | H |
| 1264 | A cry for Yelp: 'Review' any place | Write a humorous review, positive or negative, of anyplace (real of fictional) one might visit. | H |
| 1263 | Playing the short game | Using the three-letter Olympic national abbreviations and/or the abbreviation for any college, tell what would happen if one abbreviated team played another. | H |
| 1258 | The year in redo, Part 2 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1230 through Week 1254. | H |
| 1257 | The year in redo, Part 1 | Enter (or re-enter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1203 through Week 1229, except for Weeks 1205 and 1206. | H H |
| 1256 | Picture this -- a caption contest | Provide a funny caption for any of the provided cartoons. | H |
| 1254 | Inkorporation--a change-one-letter contest | Change the name of a present or past business, store or agency (not just a product) by adding one letter, deleting one letter, transposing two letters or substituting one letter for another. | H |
| 1251 | Thanking outside the box | Tell us something to be thankful for. | H |
| 1250 | Poems of the year(s) | Write a humorous poem incorporating three or more terms from a particular year or era listed on Time Traveler. | 3 |
| 1249 | Ask Backwards 36 | Choose any of the 15 provided items and follow it with a question that it could humorously answer. | H |
| 1248 | C'mon, fess up! | Send us a brief "confession" -- there will be categories for true and just-kidding. | 2 |
| 1245 | Call us reprehensible . . . | Complain in a humorously missing-the-point way about something that has appeared in The Washington Post (in print or online) recently, or in another publication. | 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 |
| 1242 | Generation Yux | Give us a "then/now" joke. | H |
| 1241 | 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 |
| 1239 | MASH 3 | Combine two movie titles and describe the result. | H |
| 1238 | D-E-F Comedy Jam (or E-D-F, etc.) | Coin a threeword phrase (you may add an insignificant word or two) whose words begin with D, E and F — in any order — and describe it. | H |
| 1236 | Portmanteaux faux | Explain--inaccurately but amusingly--how a real word is a combination of two or more words, with an illustrative sentence, as in the provided examples, or some other funny way. | H |
| 1235 | The Sound of Science | Write humorous lyrics on the subject of science or technology, set to a well-known tune. | W H |
| 1230 | What in creation . . . ? | Supply a brief monologue or dialogue about a Creator's specifications or planning for some living being. | H H |
| 1229 | Gorey bits from A to Z | Send us one of more edgy rhyming alphabet-primer couplets. | H |
| 1228 | That movie is SO about you | Name someone who was the "secret inspiration" for a certain movie. | H |
| 1224 | We beg you to differ | Explain how any two (or more) items in the provided list are the same or different, or otherwise connected. | H |
| 1222 | Foaling around | Breed" any two of the provided racehorses nominated for this year's Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont; and name the foal to reflect both of them. | H |
| 1220 | O pedantry, O pedantry | Give us some humorous pedantry. | 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. | 3 |
| 1217 | Mergers you wrote: Combine two businesses with puns | Give a clever name for a combination of two or more businesses. | H H |
| 1216 | As the word turns | Create a word or multi-word term that consists of adjacent letters -- in any direction or several directions -- in the provided grid, and provide a humorous definition. | H H |
| 1215 | A so-so contest (How so-so is it?) | Write a humorous exaggeration in the form "x is so y that . . . | H H H |
| 1214 | The alternaugural address | Write a humorous passage — a “quote,” an observation, a joke, a dialogue, a poem, anything — using only words that appear in Trump’s inaugural address. | H |
| 1209 | Invented facts: A fictoid contest | Tell us a humorously untrue account of how a product or invention came to be, or got its name. | H |
| 1207 | Clue us in -- a reverse crossword | Supply clever, funny clues to up to 25 of the 72 words and multi-word terms in the provided grid. | W H |
| 1204 | Well, at least . . . | Note some good news for the coming year to comfort -- or "comfort" -- those who are depressed about the change of presidential administration. | H H |
| 1200 | The definitive dozen | Supply a word, name or multi-word term along with a wry definition or description; together, the term and description must total exactly 12 words. | W H H H |
| 1199 | We want some bad choices | Offer one or more funny Questions for Terrible People, as shown. | H |
| 1198 | Give it to us straight | Take any sentence from an article or ad in any publication dated Oct. 20 to Oct. 31 — or from an online article dated within that period — and translate it into “plain English". | H H H |
| 1197 | Picture This -- It's a Bob Staake caption contest | Write a caption for any of the cartoons provided. | H 3 |
| 1196 | Hyphen the Terrible | Combine either half of a hyphenated word or compound term with either half of another such term to create a new hyphenated term, and describe the result humorously. | H |
| 1193 | Poedtry | Write a Poed, which consists of four lines: The first line contains six one-syllable words. The second line contains three two-syllable words. The third line contains two three-syllable words. The fourth line contains one six-syllable word (or a name totaling six syllables. And at least two of the lines must rhyme. | H |
| 1192 | Ask Backwards | The 15 provided phrases above are the answers. You provide the questions to as many as you’d like (up to 25 entries total). | H 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 H |
| 1190 | You're workin' on a chain, gang | Create a chain of no more than 15 proper nouns — names of people (real or fictional), products, places, etc. — including one title of a work — in which each name relates somehow to the previous one. | H 3 |
| 1189 | Gee, it's Limerixicon XIII! | Supply a humorous, previously unpublished limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term beginning with "ge". | H |
| 1188 | Just short words, one more time | Explain some concept or philosophy entirely in words of one syllable. | W |
| 1185 | The Rorschach of the crowd | Interpret one of more of the provided genuine inkblots. You may look at them upside down or sideways. | W H |
| 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 H |
| 1183 | C'mon, be honest with us | Write something in roughly the form "If X were more honest, (then) Y. | H |
| 1182 | Where in the wor(l)d? | (1) On What3words.com, find one or more humorously appropriate (or ironic) three-word codes at a particular place; or 2) find a three-word code, tell us where it is, and tell us what ought to be there. | H |
| 1179 | Blasted alphabetical contests . . . | Coin a three-word phrase whose words begin with A, B and C -- in any order -- and describe it. | H H |
| 1176 | Let 'er RIP: Write an obit line | Write a humorous line or two for someone's obituary -- either for a particular person (dead or not) or for a fictional or generic one. | H H |
| 1175 | Good luck with 13 | Make up a word whose Scrabble letter values add up to exactly 13, and define it. | H H |
| 1169 | Be caustic by acrostic | Review or otherwise describe a movie, book, play or TV show (or Internet equivalent) with words whose first letters spell out the name of the work. | H 3 |
| 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 |
| 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 |