| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1569 | Look Back in Inker -- Our 2023 retrospective, Part 1 | Enter or reenter our Week 1-25 contests. | H 4 |
| 1564 | "Air" "Quotes" | A new forefinger contest | H |
| 1553 | Doody and Muldoon | Write a Muldoon, a four-line poem that features at least two body parts and a place name, and at least one rhyme. | T L H H 2 |
| 1536 | Colt Following | Now that we have the winner and punners-up of our venerable foal-name contest, it's time for 'grandfoals'. | 3 |
| 1534 | Pun for the Roses | Our renowned horse name 'breeding' contest returns! | H H H H |
| 1518 | The final Post edition | Some all-time favorite entries | H |
| 1493 | Frankly speaking with feghoots | Tell a feghoot -- a mini-story (a ridiculous one is fine) that ends in a groaner pun on a familiar expression, title, line from a song, etc. | H |
| 1489 | Let's movie things around | Rearrange the words of a movie title to create a new movie, then describe it | H |
| 1487 | Colt following -- now it's the grandfoals | Breed" any of the "foal" names provided in today's results (including the intro) and give the "grandfoal" a name that reflects both names. | H 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 H |
| 1470 | Your add here -- a prefix feast | Add a "prefix" -- by which we mean at least one syllable of any kind (but not multiple words) -- to the beginning of any word in well-known phrase, name, book title, etc., and describe the result. | H H 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. | 3 |
| 1463 | Fork over some (new) Spoonerisms | Write and original Q-A joke featuring a spoonerism. | H H |
| 1451 | Could have said it worse ourselves | Give us a humorously bad "first draft" of a famous line from history, literature or entertainment. | H |
| 1434 | Go ahead, mate my bay: Grandfoals | Breed" any two of this week's inking foal names and name the "grandfoal. | W H H |
| 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. | 2 |
| 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 H |
| 1405 | Okay, once more around the track | Breed" any two of the provided foal names that got ink in Week 1400 and name the offspring to reflect both parents' names. | H H |
| 1400 | Back on track with our classic 'foal' contest | Breed" any two of the provided names of the 100 horses nominated for the 2020 Triple Crown races and name the "foal" to humorously reflect the parents' names. | H |
| 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 H H H |
| 1382 | For us, it's still Post Time | Breed" any two names from the provided list of 100 of the 145 previous Kentucky Derby winners, from 1875 to 2019, and name the foal to humorously reflect the parents' names. | H H 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. | H H 4 |
| 1326 | Foaling around | Breed" any two names from the provided list of 100 horses and name the foal to reflect both names. | H 3 |
| 1304 | All the muse that's fit to print | Present a "what if" scenario and explain its effect. | H |
| 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. | W 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 H |
| 1070 | Colt following -- our grandfoals contest | Breed" any two of the foal names that got ink this week, and name the offspring to reflect the parents' names. | H |
| 1066 | It's mating season | Breed" any two from the provided list of 100 of the 3-year-old racehorses nominated for this year's Triple Crown and name the foal to reflect both names. | 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 |
| 1027 | Built for two | Give humorous related names for any pair of features in a given building, organization, etc. | H |
| 1020 | Colt following | Breed any two of this week's winning foals and name the grandfoal. | H H |
| 1016 | Foaling around | Breed any two of the horses nominated for this year's Triple Crown races and give the foal a name humorously reflecting the names of the parents. | H |
| 1011 | Top these! | Try your hand at any of the contests mentioned in this look back. | H |
| 973 | A real triple crown | The horses in this week's list either produced no inking "foals" in Week 965, or ran in the Kentucky Derby but weren't on the initial list. "Breed" any two and name the foal. | H |
| 969 | Colt following | Breed any two "foals" in today's results, and name the grandfoal. | H H |
| 965 | Foaling around | Breed any two of the horses in this year's Triple Crown races and name their foal. | H H H |
| 918 | Colt Following | Breed any two "foals" in today's results, or one foal with one of the real horse names used in today's entries--and name the "grandfoal." The name may not exceed 18 characters, including spaces, and your entry shouldn't remotely duplicate any of today's results. | H H 4 |
| 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. | W H |
| 863 | It's Post time | Breed any two of 100 of the almost 400 horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races, and name the foal. | H H |
| 861 | It's incumbent upon us | Combine the names of two or more freshman members of Congress to create "joint legislation." This week's pool of legislators includes only those who were elected to their seats before 1994, the first year we ran the freshman contest. | W H H |
| 820 | Be Mister Language Person | Supply a Mister Language Person-type question and answer. | 2 |
| 814 | There Will Be Bloodline | Breed any two of the winning "offspring" included in this week's results, and name their foal. | H H 2 |
| 810 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Breed any two of the more than 400 horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races and provide an appropriate name for their foal. | W H |
| 799 | Send Us the Bill | Come up with legislation that, given their names, two or more freshman senators or representatives might sponsor together. | 2 |
| 763 | Another Time Around the Track | Breed any two of the winning "offspring" included in this week's results, and name THEIR foal. | H |
| 759 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Breed any two of the 100 horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown and provide an appropriate name for their foal. | H 4 |
| 708 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Breed any two from a list of 100 of the horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races and provide an appropriate name for their foal. | H |
| 705 | Simile Outrageous | Come up with funny analogies, perhaps with some 21st-century references. | H |
| 696 | Send Us the Bill | Come up legislation the newly-elected members of Congress might sponsor together. | 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 |
| 650 | King Us | Give us a scenario for a horror novel based on an everyday item. | H |
| 611 | Ask Backwards, Erudite Edition | You are on "Jeopardy!" Here are the sophisticated answers. You supply the questions. | H |
| 610 | MASH | Find two well-known movies, plays, or TV shows whose title have a significant word in common, combine their titles, and describe the hybrid. | H |
| 604 | Fun for the Roses | Breed any two of the horses on a list of those qualifying for this year's Triple Crown races, and tell us a good name for their foal. The name of the foal must be no more than 18 characters, including spaces. | H H |
| 602 | Take a Letter -- Again | Take a word, term or name that begins with A, B, C or D; either add one letter, subtract one letter, replace one letter, or transpose two letters; and define the new word. | 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 |
| 539 | Dead Letters | Pay tribute in verse to someone who died in 2003. | H |
| 517 | Insert Joke Here | Slip a single bogus sentence into next year's State of the Union address, figuring the Prez will probably just read it right off the teleprompter. | H |
| 508 | Letter Rip | Take a word from the dictionary, add, change, or delete a single letter, and redefine the word. | W H H H H |
| 507 | Crocktails | Come up with a drink named for something or someone associated with Washington and describe the drink. | 3 |
| 503 | Doody and Muldoon | Write poetry that out-Muldoons Paul Muldoon, the Princeton professor who won this year's Pulitzer Prize in poetry. Your poem must be a single quatrain, containing at least one rhyme and references to at least two body parts and one geographic name. | H 3 |
| 502 | Picture This | Who are these people? What are they doing? | H H H |
| 499 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Mate any two of the horses qualifying for this year's Triple Crown and tell us the name of their foal. Maximum 18 characters, including spaces. | H H 4 |
| 497 | Ask Backward | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? | H H |
| 492 | Cheap Tricks | Come up with extreme cost-conserving measures for these difficult economic times. | H |
| 491 | Hirschfeld Follies | Try to figure out which celebrities Bob Staake is trying to draw in imitation of Al Hirschfeld. | H |
| 490 | Eyes on Reprise | Submit any good entries you might have thought of, for any previous contest, after the deadline passed. | 2 |
| 489 | Combo, First Blood | Combine two people whose names contain a common element, as in the examples above. Then describe the person, or provide a quote he or she might have uttered. | H |
| 486 | A Word From Our Co-Sponsors | Come up with bills the new members of Congress might sponsor. Each bill must have at least two sponsors. | H H 3 |
| 484 | Manufracturing | Take any product and explain how it would be different if it were designed by a different existing company. | H H H |
| 477 | A Load of Bulwer | Give us the beginning of incompetently written novel. | H 2 |
| 466 | Spit the Difference | Tell us the difference between any two of the provided items. | H |
| 463 | Retell Sales | Give us the beginning of any well-known story as retold by any famous person, living or dead, except for Ronald Reagan. | W |
| 460 | Pompous Assets | Come up with the first paragraph of a review of a real book or movie, past or present, that is narcissistic, pretentious, and self-aggrandizing. | W H |
| 457 | Letter Rip | Give us the beginning of a letter to the editor that is certain never to see print. | I H |
| 456 | A Bad-Ask Contest | You are still on Jeopardy!, and you still have to supply questions to the provided answers, but the winners will be the least funny answers. | H |
| 452 | Russellmania! | (1) Design one or more steps for a 12-step program for the recovering Invitationalaholic; (2) Propose a devious method by which we might lure Russell Beland back. | H |
| 448 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Mate any two of the horses qualifying for the Triple Crown races this year and propose a name for their foal. No name may exceed 18 characters, including spaces. | 2 |
| 444 | Advice Squad | Take any letter from today's advice columns and answer it in the voice of someone famous, living or dead. | 3 |
| 443 | Sick Humor | Come up with modern diseases of Washington life. | H 3 |
| 442 | Titletales | Take any real book or movie, change one word slightly, and describe the resulting new product. | H |
| 430 | OMB Directive No. 2 | Revisit any contest The Style Invitational has ever run, and rewrite our tawdry past by proposing a new first-prize winner serious and/or decorous enough to please the Ombudsman. | W |
| 427 | Skinned | Come up with events that have a smaller chance of happening than the Redskins winning the Super Bowl. | H |
| 423 | Roling With Laughter | Take a character from one movie, use him or her to replace a character in a second movie, and then explain how this change would affect the second movie. | H H |
| 412 | Painful Climaxes | Come up with statements that start really dramatically, but leave you sorta flat at the end. | H H |
| 411 | X's and Oaths | Take any oath, pledge, declaration or slogan and update it. | T |
| 408 | What's In a Name? | Take the name of any politician, living or dead, and construct an appropriate message from the letters of the name. You may use any letter as many times as you wish, and you may insert punctuation. | H |
| 405 | The "Sty"le Invitational | Take any word--this may include people or places--put a portion of it in "air quotes" and redefine it. You may not alter the spelling. | H H H 2 |
| 404 | Balloonacy | Create a comic strip of one to four panels. For your dialogue or thought balloons, you may choose from the provided menu. You may invent one line of your own. | W |
| 399 | IT PAYS TO BE GENDEROUS | Write a short film description that could persuade a woman that the guy movie he wants to see is really close to being a gal movie, or vice versa. | 4 |
| 396 | April Foals | Mate any two of the horses qualifying for the Triple Crown races and come up with appropriate names for their foals. Maximum 18 letters and spaces. | W T H H H H |
| 395 | Devilishly Clever | Describe someone's special little corner of Hell. | H 3 |
| 393 | Things Could Be Verse | Take any story in today's Washington Post and rewrite it into a rhyming poem of no more than eight lines. | H |
| 390 | Canine Fashion | Write: 1. A caption for the provided image explaining what is happening; 2. An explanation of why the image is not photography but art; 3. A description of what additional items might be needed to make the image complete. Sex and potty jokes will be disqualified. | H |
| 387 | By Jingo | Come up with a joke that could be written and understood only by a Washingtonian. | W |
| 384 | What's Your Story? | Take at least four of the provided cartoons, arrange them in any sequence you wish, and make up a funny story that they would illustrate. | H |
| 383 | A Kinder, Gender Nation | Take an noun and give us a reason or two why it should be either masculine or feminine. | H |
| 382 | Pickup Schticks | Write inept pickup lines, by either sex, to either sex. | W |
| 381 | Idiom Savant | Take any well-known idiom, or expression, and invent an interesting derivation for it. | H |
| 380 | The New-Name Offense | Propose changes for the names of places and things that need it, either because there is something wrong with their name, or because another name would be so much more descriptive. | H H |
| 379 | Rather Unusual | Come up with lines that could be uttered by Dan Rather, with his unbearably folksy excesses. | 2 |
| 377 | Week MMDCXLIV | Provide a headline (and, if necessary, the first line of the text) for any article that will appear in The Washington Post on this day in the year 2050. | H H |
| 375 | Show Us Up | Combine the names of two existing TV shows (past or present) to make an entirely new show. Then, describe the show. | W I H |
| 372 | Trial Balloons | Fill in the balloons. | H |
| 371 | Ask Backward | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? | H H |
| 367 | Future Schlock | Come up with a line that will surely not appear in an upcoming work. | H 4 |
| 365 | Terse Verse | Ask a question and then answer it with a rhyme. Your answer can be as many words as you wish, but all must have the same rhyme. | H H 4 |
| 364 | Low Marks | Come up with a new punctuation mark. Tell us what it looks like, and what it is used for, and use it in a sentence. | H |
| 359 | It's No Party | Come up with a new political party and its main political tenet. | W H |
| 358 | Finish the Fire | Finish "We Didn't Start the Fire," to summarize 1990 to the present. | H H |
| 357 | Coming to a Bad End | Take some immortal line from literature or film and ruin it by adding a short phrase or sentence. | H |
| 356 | Med Icks | Invent a clever name for a new medical product, and specify the condition it would treat. | H H H H |
| 355 | Seeing Stars | Tell us ways we can attract celebrity participation to this contest. | H H |
| 352 | A Laff Riot | Take the name of a company and/or its commercial product and provide it a new definition. | H H |
| 351 | Dubya Fun | Take any well-known statement, expression, slogan, etc., and rewrite it the way Dubya might have said it. | W H H H |
| 350 | Employing Irony | Propose bad career choices. | H H 3 |
| 348 | When We're LXIV | Fashion an entry by selecting one from each of the provided menu groups: a short poem, analogy or metaphor, slogan or aphorism, or "Did you ever wonder why" sentence with various limitations. | 3 |
| 346 | Greasy Kids Tough | Take any news event from history, recent or ancient, large or small, and rewrite it in 100 words or fewer as it might have appeared in KidsPost. | H H |
| 345 | Picture This | What is going on in these cartoons? | H H |
| 344 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Envision the mating of any two of the 387 horses qualifying for this year's Triple Crown, and propose a name for their foal. The foal's name must be contained in 18 or fewer letters and spaces. | H H |
| 343 | Eastwood Ho. | Create a Good-Bad-Ugly progression. | H H |
| 341 | What's In a Name? | Write something about any famous person that uses only the letters in his or her name. | P |
| 340 | ASK BACKWARDS 12 | You are on "Jeopardy!" Here are the answers. What are the questions? | H H |
| 339 | Campaignful Developments | Come up with signs that a presidential campaign might be in trouble. | H H |
| 338 | WHO WANTS TO WIN A TOILET? | Propose even greater depths of shameless, tasteless sleaze to which Fox TV is likely to sink after the noisome debacle of "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? | 4 |
| 336 | THE "STY"LE INVITATIONAL | Choose any word and emphasize a single part of it, as though you were saying the word out loud with "air quotes" around the key part. Then redefine the word. You cannot alter the spelling of the word. | H H 4 |
| 335 | A LOVER'S SPAT | Come up with some inept "sweet nothings"--graceless terms of endearment. | U |
| 334 | The New Style Invitational: Six Choices for Czar | Vote for one of six possible editors of the Style Invitational, from among the current Czar and five worthy competitors. | W H H |
| 327 | ASK BACKWARDS | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? | H |
| 324 | A PREQUEL OPPORTUNITY OFFERING | Come up with a "prequel" to some classic film or work of literature. You must produce a title and a brief plot summary, which of course must take place prior to the main action of the original work. | H H |
| 317 | PICK US A WINNER | Come up with flawed contest ideas, and the single, obvious, too-good-to-beat entry. | H H E |
| 315 | FERMENTING TROUBLE | Write a rhyming poem, eight lines maximum, on the subject of cheese or any of the provided items. | I 3 |
| 313 | THE STYLE INVITATIONAL SOUVENIR SHOP | Come up with bad names for a new store at a mall. | E |
| 312 | BOOKS AND BOOKS | Combine any two works of literature--no movies or TV--into one, give its title and describe it in a brief, appealing blurb that might appear in Publishers' Weekly. | H |
| 311 | A JERRY-BUILT CONTEST | Find cleverly disguised threats to public morality or hallowed American values that may be secretly lurking out there in our culture. | H |
| 310 | IT'S LIKE THIS | Come up with really lame analogies. | H H |
| 309 | A STINKING PILE OF THESES | Write an all-purpose first line or paragraph for any doctoral dissertation, designed to impress the heck out of academics. | 3 |
| 308 | GIVE US NO MO | Write an updated version of those old children's selecting rhymes. Your rhyme must (1) rhyme and (2) conform, at least loosely, to a point-and-shoot cadence that permits the elimination of one item from a group. | H H |
| 306 | YOUNGIAN THERAPY | Suggest ways in which the Style Invitational or any other Washington area institution can become more relevant to younger people. | E |
| 305 | ASK BACKWARDS CMXVI2 | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? | H 6 |
| 304 | TIME OF THE SIGNS | Come up with appropriate signage to appear outside any business or retail establishment in the Washington area, including government offices. | H |
| 303 | BOOM TIMES | Come up with old and new concerns for the baby boom generation. | H |
| 302 | UNSTATED TRUTHS | Come up with lines that you'll never hear the provided people say. | H H |
| 301 | PICTURE THIS | What is happening in these cartoons? | W H |
| 300 | A BRAND NEW CONTEST | Come up with celebrity-brand products. | H H H 2 |
| 298 | THE RIGHT STUFF | Write a sentence, or phrase, or entire passage, using only your right hand on the keyboard. This means you may use no keys to the left of N, H, Y and 7. | H E |
| 297 | FREE FOR OIL | Take any article in today's paper, and write an outraged letter to the editor about it that totally misses the point, either by misreading a word or misunderstanding the topic. | E |
| 295 | PANEL DISCUSSION | Supply the contents of the missing panel in the provided cartoon strips. | H |
| 288 | PICTURE THIS | What is happening in these pictures? | W |
| 287 | BEFORE AND AFTERMATH | Begin with a real name, append to it a word, name or expression that completes the bridge, and finally define the resulting phrase. | H |
| 284 | ASK BACKWARDS MCLXVII | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? | H H H 4 |
| 282 | TAKING SNIDES | Take any story anywhere in today's Post and append to it a single snide observation, concerning either the headline or the text of the story. | E |
| 281 | CALCULATE THE ODDS | Tell us which of the two provided items does not belong with the other two, and why. | H |
| 279 | TREACLE-DOWN THEORY | Come up with a treacly and deeply moving piece of crap. It must somehow mine joy and goopy inspiration from the vicissitudes of life. It must also rhyme. | E 2 |
| 278 | THE STALE INVITATIONAL | Begin with a word. Add, subtract or change a single letter only, and then provide a new definition. | H H H H |
| 277 | LIFE IN THE BLURBS | Come up a simple plot summary to help attract the modern audience to any classic work of fiction. It must be literally true and defensible. | H H H 4 |
| 276 | SPIT THE DIFFERENCE | Tell us the difference between any two of the provided items. | H |
| 274 | THE DROLL OF A LIFETIME | Be the New Yorker comics editor, and explain to readers of The Washington Post why the provided jokes are charmingly witty. | H |
| 273 | UNSEENS WE'D LIKE TO SEE | Provide examples of any of the provided categories of things that will never happen. | H H |
| 272 | PICTURE THIS | What is happening in these cartoons? | H |
| 271 | YOGI BEARER | Come up with new Yogi-isms, which seem to make sense, but collapse like a soufflé when you poke it a little | H |
| 269 | SIGNS, AND THE TIMES | Come up with new, helpful signage for downtown streets. You must state the problem, and propose the sign to rectify it. | H |
| 266 | DEFINITELY WEIRD | Take any word from the dictionary and redefine it. | H |
| 265 | A SPORK OF GENIUS | Come up with new products like the spork: combinations of two existing products that work together in some special way. Name the device and explain its function. | P 2 |
| 264 | ASK BACKWARDS | You are on "Jeopardy!" Here are the answers. What are the questions? | H E |
| 263 | THE GAME OF THE NAME | Propose a bad name for the provided categories. | H |
| 262 | CAMPAIGN FOR ONE | Design a line for Niels Hoven to deliver in his campaign for a student government office that will wake up a snoozing audience. | W H H |
| 261 | WHAT IF YOU GIVE IT A TRY II | Alter some crucial moment in history, and then tell us the likely outcome. | H |
| 260 | IT'S A SNAP | Come up with replacements for the two hackneyed answers: "Is the Pope Catholic?" and "When Hell freezes over. | H H 5 2 |
| 259 | SPARE EXCHANGE, BUDDY? | Take any phone number of any business or government office in the Washington area, translate the first two digits into their constituent letters and propose any appropriate one-word exchange. | H |
| 258 | IT'S A BIRD. IT'S A PAIN. | Choose one or more of the provided super powers and tell us what you would do with it. | H |
| 256 | THE PYLE INVITATIONAL | Come up with hip, contemporary riddles and answers. The punch line must contain a painful pun. | H E 2 |
| 253 | IT'S A PITY | Enter any of the provided contests. Winners will be judged entirely on the basis of how pitiful an attempt at humor the entry is. | H H H H H 2 |
| 252 | MAKE YOUR MOVIE | Propose people who were the secret inspiration for famous movies. | H H |
| 250 | OH, GREAT | Complete the sentence "Wouldn't it be great if . . . | H |
| 247 | BLACK AND WHITE AND WED ALL OVER | Propose the marriage of any two people, and the song they should not play at their wedding. The people must be a man and a woman. | H |
| 245 | LIKE FUN | Complete any of the provided "A is like B because" sentences. | H |
| 241 | CAN YOU BEAT THIS? | Come up with headlines describing the defeat of one pro team by another. | H 5 |
| 240 | ADDING INSULT | Come up with elegant insults directed at any famous person, living or dead, such as the real encomiums above. | E |
| 239 | NAME THAT TOON | Send us the captions for cartoons not provided. | H 3 |
| 238 | CHALK IT UP TO STUPIDITY | Propose apologies for yourself in the style of Bart Simpson writing on his blackboard. | H 2 |
| 237 | ASK BACKWARD | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? | H 4 |
| 236 | CALLING THE TOON. | What is happening here? | H H H |
| 235 | ROOTS | Make up historical explanations--they should be vaguely plausible--for the etymology of any term you wish. The term should be the punch line. | E |
| 233 | SEEKING PARODY | Take any paragraph appearing on Page A1 of today's Washington Post, and rewrite it in the style of any famous writer. | 4 |
| 232 | PRIMAL URGES | Update, for the millennium, the old "A is for Apple" reading primer. An entry must include the four letters in one of these blocks: A-D, E-H, I-L, M-P, Q-T, U-Z. | H |
| 230 | TALES FROM THE CRYPTOGRAM | Take any proper noun--a person, a book, a movie, whatever--and create for it an appropriate cryptogram. | H H |
| 228 | MAKE MY DAY | Supply advice to today's spoiled kids about how bad things were when we were growing up. | H |
| 227 | WILD PITCHES | Come up worthy successors to Joe Camel. Name the product, and describe the totally inappropriate cartoon character that would be created to represent it. | H H |
| 226 | GOING WITHOUT | Complete some variation of the expression "An A without a B is like a C without a D. | W H H |
| 225 | WE RESPECTfully decline to publish any dumb entries by YOU. | Come up with signs for a T-shirt or a bumper sticker that hide the real message in tiny type. | 5 |
| 223 | ATTEMPTING REENTRY | Submit entries to any past contest, so long as you never submitted them before. | H |
| 221 | SONG SUNG BROWN | Pick any song, pick a well-known line, and give us the discarded first draft. If it is part of a rhyme, you must maintain the rhyme. | E |
| 219 | VERBOSITY | Come up with new, obnoxious, self-conscious faux verbs and use them in sentences. | H 2 |
| 217 | NO QUESTION ABOUT IT | Come up with truly stupid questions. | I |
| 215 | SON OF A PITCH | Write lavish blurbs in 50 words or fewer so some sucker will want to pay a lot of money for the provided items. | H H H H H H E 2 |
| 214 | ASK BACKWARDS IX | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are your answers. What are the questions? | H |
| 212 | DUMB AS THE POST | Come up with even stupider crimes than those committed by Montgomery County's "gentleman burglars. | H H H H E |
| 210 | RANDOM MEMO | Supply embarrassing "While You Were Out" phone messages that might be left for famous people, in plain sight, while they are away from their desks. | H |
| 208 | SEND IN THE CLONES | Suggest questions a commission to investigate the moral, legal and practical question raised by cloning might consider. | H H H |
| 203 | CAN IT GET MUCH VERSE? | Create Very Bad Poetry, containing banalities masquerading as profundities, overstretched metaphors, etc. Special attention should be paid to dreadful syntax and painful rhyme | H H |
| 199 | WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? | Tell us the difference between any two of the provided items. | H |
| 197 | DAVE'S WORLD | Make David Twenhafel laugh. Any sort of delightful drollery or amusing witticism will do, so long as it is not the sort of lowbrow fare we usually favor. | H |
| 196 | YOU MUST BE MAD | Come up with a contemporary Scene We'd Like to See. | E |
| 195 | THE MARTHIAN CHRONICLES | Come up with items for Martha Stewart's December-January calendar of projects. | H |
| 194 | ADVICE SQUAD | Answer any of the provided questions unwisely. | H |
| 192 | HILL'S BILLS | Come up with bills any of the new members of Congress might jointly sponsor. | H E |
| 191 | GOING THROUGH A PHRASE | Come up with phrase for an American English phrasebook that would provide no practical help whatsoever to a foreigner trying to get along in the United States. | H |
| 190 | OFFICE YOU CAN'T REFUSE | Come up with a Principle for the Workplace. | 2 |
| 189 | YOU CAN PRANK ON IT | Come up with a hoax or prank that begins with any of the provided scenarios. | 3 3 |
| 187 | RACE TO THE FINISH LINE | In 75 words or fewer, continue in a productive fashion the story line of the provided real first lines of famous literary works. | W H H |
| 183 | COCKNEY RHYMING SLANG II | Create hawkers' rhymes for modern-day occupations like lobbyists, lawyers, talk show hosts, actuaries, etc., at a maximum of four lines. It must contain at least one rhyme. | I H H |
| 182 | CAN YOU STOP THIS? | Come up with a conversation stopper, a line likely to end all further discourse, perhaps even empty a room. | H H H 2 |
| 179 | A CLOCKWORK, UM, UM, ... ER | Write single sentences containing no fewer than three examples of rhyming slang. | W |
| 177 | SOUNDS LIKE TROUBLE | Tell us what any of the provided sounds are. | I H |
| 176 | WRITE IN THE KISSER | In the style of any famous author, write a description of any one of these people: Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Prince Charles or Sylvester Stallone. | L |
| 175 | FOSSIL FOOLS | What would aliens mistakenly conclude about us from any of the provided items? | H |
| 173 | DEAD RECKONING | Propose a question that might be asked by a living celebrity to a famous dead person. You must name the living person, name the dead person, and tell us the question. | H 6 |
| 171 | ON SECOND THOUGHT | Ideas that never got off the drawing board, for good reason. | W H |
| 169 | DIFF'RENT JOKES | Tell us the difference between any two of the provided items. | H H |
| 168 | LICENSE TO CARRY A PUN | Come up with original jokes like those provided. | L 3 |
| 167 | CRAPSEY | Resurrect the "cinquain," a long-deceased poetic form, poems so ickily precocious and pretentious they make haiku look like Kipling. There are five lines, the first containing two syllables, the second containing four syllables, the third six, the fourth eight and the last, with grave finality and thunderous drama, only two. Your subject matter must be suitable for the 1990s. | H 4 |
| 165 | WHEEL OF TORTURE | Complete any of the provided "Wheel of Fortune" phrases. | H H |
| 164 | MEAN MEANINGS | Translate things politicians say into what they really mean. | H H H H |
| 163 | WHAT KIND OF FOAL AM I? | Take the list of all 1996 Triple Crown nominees, couple up any two of them, and propose an appropriate name for their hypothetical foal. The foal's name must fit in no more than 18 characters, including spaces. | P |
| 162 | MAY WE HAVE YOUR PRETENSION, PLEASE? | Come up with the most pretentious original sentence possible. | H |
| 161 | CAPITOL MISTAKES | Come up with very, very bad advice for first-time visitors to Washington. | L |
| 158 | SO SUE US | Come up with frivolous lawsuits. | H |
| 157 | WARNING SIGNS | Complete any of these "you might be about to" warning sentences. | E |
| 151 | STRIP MINING | Come up with a concept for a new, controversial strip to replace an existing one in The Post. | H H H |
| 149 | O, NO! | Come up with a palindrome, a line that reads the same backward and forward, and then use it as a punchline to a joke. | E |
| 148 | RORSCHACH OF THE CROWD IV | Interpret these ink blots. | H |
| 147 | JUST FOR LIFFS | Come up with original liffs, which identify a familiar, tantalizing concept without a word to define it, and pairs it with a perfectly good but underutilized word that just loafs around on maps and street signs. | H |
| 145 | LOOIE, LOOIE | Come up with paired, themed ladies' room and men's room signs for various types of public places. | H 2 |
| 144 | JUST REBUS ALONE | Come up with a rebus, a phrase or sentence composed of letters, pictures, and symbols. Your entry must contain at least two pictures or illustrations from today's Washington Post. | W |
| 140 | WHAT IF YOU GIVE IT A TRY? | Come up with "What-If" scenarios and logical outcomes. | H H |
| 136 | NEW END IN SIGHT | Come up with new endings to make literary classics more suitable for Hollywood in the 1990s. | H 5 |