| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1498 | V for Verses -- misuse a word in a poem | Write a short (eight lines or fewer), humorous poem that uses one or more words in other than their actual meanings. | H H |
| 1496 | Same Difference -- compare two items on this list | Tell us humorously how any two (or more) items on the provided list are alike or different, or linked in some other way. | H |
| 1486 | No can do: Signs of incompetence | Give us a clue that someone was incompetent in a given field. | H |
| 1484 | Two ways about it | What's something (printable) you could say in two -- or more -- of the provided situations. | W |
| 1462 | Time for a new career? | Tell what would happen if any two people switched professions or other roles. | H |
| 1395 | Add nauseam: A plus-one contest | Add a "plus one" to some familiar numerical grouping, true or fictional | H |
| 1390 | 'Same difference' for a new time | Explain how any two of the items in the provided list are similar, different or otherwise linked. | H |
| 1384 | Of course there are stupid questions! | Give us stupid questions, especially ones reflecting Our Current Situation. | 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. | H |
| 1372 | Trash talking, 1880-style | Write a quatrain or -- heck -- two of Balliol rhyme about some person. | H |
| 1346 | AZ if -- balancing acts | Think of a new word or two-word phrase that begins and ends -- either way -- with one of the provided "alphabetically balanced" pairs. | H |
| 1316 | Lies, damn lies, with statistics | Tell us some bogus trivia using "statistics" or some bogus quantitative meaure. | 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 |
| 1237 | Our alliteracy campaign | Rewrite an existing headline from any publication, print or online — about something in the news from July 20 to 31, by using alliteration. | 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 |
| 1210 | Send us the bill: Our 'joint legislation' game | Combine two or more names from the provided list of members of Congress to “co-sponsor” a bill based on their combined last names, and state its purpose. | H 3 |
| 1195 | Don't change a letter! | Alter a movie title only by changing word spacing, changing capitalization, and adding or deleting punctuation marks, accents, etc., then describe the result. | H |
| 1187 | Just drop it, okay? | Drop the last letter from an existing word, phrase or name and define the result. | 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 |
| 1154 | Tabby Road -- songs for cats | Write a song for -- or about -- cats or other animals, set to a familiar tune. | H |
| 1142 | Two-faced tweets | Combine two well-known names into a Twitter handle, and write a tweet (no more than 140 characters and spaces) that that portmanteau person might write. | 2 |
| 1130 | Yux Redux: Play on a foreign phrase | Make a word play on a foreign phrase or term (or English phrase using foreign words) and describe it. | H |
| 1112 | Some SHARP words | Coin a word or short term that includes all the letters S, H, A, R, and P. | 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. | 4 |
| 1092 | Are we having funds yet? | Suggest a humorous fundraising "challenge" for any organization. | H H |
| 1091 | Good idea! or not. | Come up with a good idea and, through a small change in wording, a bad idea. | H |
| 1087 | The core ridiculum | Come up with a comical class (any type of school) and provide a course catalog description. | H 2 |
| 1064 | HistoRebuffs | Alter some moment in history and tell us -- in no more than about 50 words -- the likely outcome. | H |
| 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 |
| 1026 | 'Might' makes ink | Give us a joke using any of the using any of the provided "you might be" templates. | H H |
| 1021 | 'Gram theft | Come up with a term by scrambling any of the letters sets in the provided list, and define it. | H H |
| 1017 | Vowel play | Write a "univocalic" newspaper headline -- one that uses only one vowel throughout. | H |
| 1012 | The news at 5 | Write a limerick about a recent news event. | H |
| 1011 | Top these! | Try your hand at any of the contests mentioned in this look back. | H |
| 1010 | Picture this | Write a caption for any of the five provided cartoons. | W |
| 1007 | Clue us in | Come up with creative, funny clues for the words and multi-word terms in the provided grid. | H |
| 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. | H 2 |
| 967 | Overlap dance II | Create a phrase that overlaps two terms, each of two words or more, and describe the result. | H |
| 961 | The end of our rhops | Write a funny passage or headline whose words all have the same number of letters. | 4 |
| 955 | Twits' twist | Create a phrase by combining a word or phrase with an anagram of that word or phrase, and define or describe it. | H |
| 950 | Of all the nerve! | Give us a humorous example of hypothetical chutzpah. | H |
| 949 | Analogies | Give us an analogy using "a is to b as x is to y." | H |
| 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 |
| 936 | Hoho contendere | Slightly alter a well-known foreign-language term and define it. | 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 |
| 903 | Bill us now | Combine the names of two or more members of Congress as co-sponsors of a bill. | H |
| 883 | Same difference | Choose any two items from the list above and explain why they are alike or are different from each other. | 2 |
| 860 | Ten, Anyone? | Humorously define or describe something or someone in exactly 10 words. | H |
| 859 | Can't goods | Cast a joke in one of the forms listed above. | 2 |
| 853 | It's easy as DEF | Create a brand-new word or phrase that contains a block of three successive letters in the alphabet; the series must go forward in the alphabet, not backward. | W |
| 807 | Pretty Graphic Expressions | Express some insight as an equation or other mathematical expression. | 3 |
| 803 | The Pepys Show | Write a humorous diary or journal entry for someone, famous or not, for any point in history. | H |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 684 | Backtricking | Spell a word backward and define the result, somehow relating the definition to the original word. | H |