| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1617 | Mess With Our Heads | Look at a headline and see a funnier meaning. | H |
| 1614 | The Tile Invitational XI | Make up new words with the letters we give you | H |
| 1611 | Ask Backwards XLIII | We give you the 'answers'; you tell us the questions. | H 2 |
| 1599 | Picture This | It's our caption contest. | H |
| 1588 | Colt Fusion | Because of our munificense and guilt, you get a full hundred foal names to 'breed' for 'grandfoals' | H H |
| 1587 | The Trite Stuff | Replace some well-worn phrases with better ones. | H |
| 1586 | Pun for the Roses | Our annual crazy-popular horse 'breeding' wordplay contest. | H H |
| 1585 | Bring Up the Rear | Move the last letter of a word to the front. | H |
| 1578 | The Pepys Show | Give us a diary entry from anyone in history. | H H |
| 1570 | The Invitational, Week 52: Replaying Around -- The 2023 retrospective, Part II | Enter or reenter our Week 26-50. | H H |
| 1569 | Look Back in Inker -- Our 2023 retrospective, Part 1 | Enter or reenter our Week 1-25 contests. | H |
| 1568 | Nextra! Nextra! | Tell us the funny news events from 2024 | H H |
| 1567 | Picture This | A caption contest | H |
| 1551 | Ask Backwards XLII | We give the answers. You give the questions. | H |
| 1544 | Same Difference | Tell us humorously how items on the list are alike, different, or otherwise linked. | H |
| 1542 | Your (B)ad Here | Tweak an ad slogan to use it for another product | H |
| 1540 | Picture This | It's caption contest time, with eight motley pictures to choose from. | H H |
| 1531 | The Worst New Contest Ever | Describe something that would be worse than a second Trump presidency | H |
| 1528 | It's Our Birthday. Party Like It's 1993. | As the Invite turns 30, enter your choice of contests from our year of infancy | H |
| 1523 | Where in Hell ...? | Name a "circle" for some "evil", plus a suitable punishment | H H H |
| 1508 | Tour de Fours XIX —Laughtime Achievement | Coin a word or phrase containing the letters E-L-D-N — consecutively but in any order — and describe it. | 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 |
| 1483 | Pun for the Roses -- our famous foal-'breeding' contest | Breed" any two of the provided names and name the "foal". As in actual thoroughbred racing, a name may not exceed 18 characters including spaces. | H |
| 1467 | The Year in Redo, Part 1 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1413 through 1439, except for Weeks 1414-1416. | 4 |
| 1457 | What is Ask Backwards XL? | You are on "Jeopardy!"; various answers are provided. You provide the questions. | W 4 |
| 1443 | The letters of the laws | Propose some law -- it doesn't have to be a serious issue -- and give it a name and an acronym, | H H |
| 1436 | Haven't seen it: Fun with movie titles | Misinterpret a movie title in a supposed plot description. | H |
| 1434 | Go ahead, mate my bay: Grandfoals | Breed" any two of this week's inking foal names and name the "grandfoal. | H H |
| 1424 | We Bee back -- a neologism contest | From any of the 30 provided Spelling Bee letter sets, coin a new term or phrase and describe it humorously. You must use the first letter in the set (anywhere in the word) plus any or all of the others, as often as you like. | H H |
| 1422 | The Collaboratory | Think of a book, movie or song title. Then pair its creator, star, singer, etc., with an unrelated "collaborator" to produce a wordplay on the title. | H |
| 1415 | The Year in Redo, Part 1 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1360 through 1387, except for Weeks 1361-1363. | H |
| 1407 | Your ad space (or space ad) here | Come up with an idea for promoting some commercial product or service (a) in space, (b) in a prison, (c) at a kindergarten, (d) by a football team or (e) in the White House. | H |
| 1404 | Ask Backwards XXXIX | The answers are provided. You supply the questions. | 3 |
| 1398 | This is the year that is | Describe the year 2020 in a novel, colorful metaphor or simile. You may also offer an original graphic. | H |
| 1395 | Add nauseam: A plus-one contest | Add a "plus one" to some familiar numerical grouping, true or fictional | H |
| 1393 | Second chance (acned conches?) for anagrams | Describe any of the provided anagram businesses, or offer its slogan. | H |
| 1392 | Picture this -- caption these cartoons | Write a caption, either descriptive or in dialogue, for any of the provided Bob Staake cartoons. | H |
| 1385 | Don't you want to see new places? | Change any place name slightly and describe the new place. | H |
| 1380 | Both sides now | Delete one or more letters (in a row) from a word or brief phrase to find another word, and define it. | H 2 |
| 1371 | The Tile Invitational VII | Create a five-, six-, or seven-letter word (or phrase) by scrambling the letters of any of the provided sets and define it. | H |
| 1368 | Picture This -- cartoon captions | Supply a caption for one or more of the provided cartoons. | H |
| 1361 | 2020 vision -- the year in preview | Name some humorous news event to happen in 2020. | 3 |
| 1356 | Ask Backwards 38 | Sixteen "answers" are provided. Tell us the questions. | H 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. | H 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 |
| 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 H H |
| 1338 | Picture This -- cartoon captions | Supply a caption for one or more of the provided cartoons. | H |
| 1330 | Spinoff x Time Is Now = Grandfoals Week! | Breed" any two of the 65 foal names that got ink this week, and name the offspring to reflect both parents' names. | W |
| 1319 | The Tile Invitational VI | Create a five-, six-, or seven-letter word (or phrase) by scrambling the letters of any of the provided sets and define it. | 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 |
| 1310 | The Year in Redo, Part 2 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1282 through Week 1306. | 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 |
| 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 |
| 1290 | Bobbing for Witte words | Come up with both an object/situation and a neologism for it. | H |
| 1288 | Your results may vary | Write a funny disclaimer or warning for some product or service. | H |
| 1284 | Same difference | Explain how any two of the items in the provided list are similar, different or otherwise linked. | 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 |
| 1277 | Come into Beeing with neologisms | From any of the 15 provided Spelling Bee letter sets, coin a new term of one or two words and define it humorously. You may also supply an especially clever or funny definition of a real term. | W |
| 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 |
| 1272 | The hex files: creative curses | Come up with a creative curse. | H |
| 1271 | Yodel Doyle's praises with a D-O-Y-L-E neologism | Coin a new word or phrase that contains the letters D, O, Y, L and E. | H |
| 1267 | Jingle bungle | Suggest an ill-advised spokesman (dead or alive, or fictional), along with a humorously noooo slogan or jingle. | H 2 |
| 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 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. | 3 |
| 1256 | Picture this -- a caption contest | Provide a funny caption for any of the provided cartoons. | H |
| 1255 | Tour de Fours XIV: SANT is coming | Coin a word or multi-word term that contains the letter-block S-A-N-T; the letters may be in any order, but there may be no other letters between them. | H |
| 1249 | Ask Backwards 36 | Choose any of the 15 provided items and follow it with a question that it could humorously answer. | H |
| 1239 | MASH 3 | Combine two movie titles and describe the result. | H |
| 1228 | That movie is SO about you | Name someone who was the "secret inspiration" for a certain movie. | H |
| 1226 | Colt following: The 'grandfoals' | Breed" any two of the 61 foal names that got ink this week, and name the offspring to reflect both parents names. | 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 |
| 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. | L 4 |
| 1215 | A so-so contest (How so-so is it?) | Write a humorous exaggeration in the form "x is so y that . . . | H H |
| 1212 | The Tile Invitational IV | Give us a five-, six- or seven-letter word (or two words) by scrambling the letters of any of the provided sets and define it. | H |
| 1211 | The best tweets in history | Write a stupidly disparaging tweet (140 characters or fewer, including spaces) about some laudable figure of past or present, true or fictional. | H H |
| 1208 | A RIP-roaring year: Obit poems | Write a humorous poem of no longer than eight lines about someone who died in 2016. | 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. | H H 4 |
| 1201 | Tour de Fours XIII: What's there to NOVE? | Coin a word or multi-word term that contains the letter block N-O-V-E. | L |
| 1185 | The Rorschach of the crowd | Interpret one of more of the provided genuine inkblots. You may look at them upside down or sideways. | 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 |
| 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 |
| 1174 | Colt following -- It's time for the grandfoals | Breed" any two of the 57 foal names that got ink this week and name the offspring to reflect both parents' names. | H |
| 1158 | What have we here? | Tell us what one or more of these objects really are. | H |
| 1149 | Gestures of depreciation | Suggest ways to celebrate National Love Your Lawyer Day -- or a made-up "holiday" celebrating some other profession. | H |
| 1147 | It's E-Z find-a-word -- yours | 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 |
| 1145 | A DICEy situation | Coin a word or multi-word term that contains the letter block D-I-C-E. | H |
| 1134 | The 'Sty'le Invitational Red'ux' | Put quotation marks around part of a word, name or phrase and define the result. | H H |
| 1132 | You and what army? Military fictoids | Give us some comically bogus trivia about the military, past or present, ours or theirs. | H |
| 1128 | Drone for a loop | Give us some novel uses for a CICADA micro-drone, assuming that anyone can get one, and that it can have a micro-camera, micro-grips, etc. | H |
| 1126 | Picture this | Provide a humorous caption for any of the cartoons provided. | 2 |
| 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. | H |
| 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. | H |
| 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 H |
| 1112 | Some SHARP words | Coin a word or short term that includes all the letters S, H, A, R, and P. | H H |
| 1106 | Show your resolve | Suggest a New Year's resolution that someone might make 100 or more years in the future. | 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. | 2 |
| 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 |
| 1089 | It's E-Z Find-a-Word -- your own! | 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 |
| 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 |
| 1056 | Weather or nuts | Coin a term relating to the weather, climate, etc. -- either literal or figurative -- and define it. | H |
| 1048 | Ask Backwards | You supply the questions to as many of the provided answers as you like. | H |
| 1036 | Just for liffs | Use a real place name, from anywhere in the world, as a new term. | H |
| 1026 | 'Might' makes ink | Give us a joke using any of the using any of the provided "you might be" templates. | 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 |
| 1021 | 'Gram theft | Come up with a term by scrambling any of the letters sets in the provided list, and define it. | H 4 |
| 1015 | Faux re mi | Give us some humorously false trivia about music or musicians. | H |
| 1014 | Join now | Combine the beginning and end, or the beginnings and ends, of any two words in single Washington Post story or ad published March 21 to April 1 into a new word or two-word phrase, and define the result. | H 3 |
| 1003 | Just do it | Use a well-known advertising slogan for a different company, organization or product to humorous effect. | 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 |
| 999 | Drectrospective | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 946 through Week 995, except for Week 948. | H 4 |
| 989 | On the double | Come up with a double or multiple profession, and explain how each job complements the other(s). | W |
| 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. | 4 |
| 980 | Def jam | Supply a humorous definition for any of the provided Loser-penned neologisms. | H |
| 979 | The madding crowd | Suggest funny, original ways to tick people off. | H |
| 967 | Overlap dance II | Create a phrase that overlaps two terms, each of two words or more, and describe the result. | H H |
| 956 | Give us some bad ideas | Finish any of the provided "You know" phrases. | H H |
| 946 | Another round of Bierce | Write a clever definition of a word, name or multi-word term. | 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 |
| 937 | Staake it to him | Write a caption for any of the five pages or details pictured from some of Bob's more than 50 picture books. | H |
| 932 | We'll call them your-mama jokes | Tell us an original "your mama" joke. | H |
| 930 | We WANT stupid complaints! | Complain comically unreasonably about some innocuous thing appearing in the print Post or on washingtonpost.com over the next week or the previous few days. | H |
| 928 | Play feature | Use the title of a movie as the answer to a riddle or other question. | M |
| 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 |
| 910 | Your ad here | Slightly alter an advertising slogan so that someone else could use it. | H |
| 902 | What's the good news? | Take any sentence, or substantive part of a sentence, or a headline from an article or ad in The Washington Post or washingtonpost.com from Jan. 7 to Jan. 18 and make it sound upbeat (or not so bad). | H |
| 900 | Dear us! | Submit a "Dear Blank" letter to us instead. | H |
| 897 | Catch their drift | Take any sentence from an article or ad in The Washington Post or washingtonpost.com from Dec. 3 to Dec. 13 and translate it into "plain English. | H |
| 847 | 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 Dec. 11 through Dec. 21 and come up with a question it might answer. | H |
| 838 | Picture This | Provide a caption for any of these pictures. | H |
| 827 | Caller Idiot | Name a real product or company and supply a stupid question or complaint for the consumer hotline person. | W |
| 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 |
| 820 | Be Mister Language Person | Supply a Mister Language Person-type question and answer. | 4 |
| 813 | Aw, Shocks | Give us a humorous example of the "shocking -- not. | W |
| 802 | Dreck TV | Suggest a new cable TV channel, with a description or example of its programming. | 3 |