| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1434 | Go ahead, mate my bay: Grandfoals | Breed" any two of this week's inking foal names and name the "grandfoal. | H H |
| 1353 | What's playing at the retroplex | Change a movie title to its "opposite" by reversing one or more words; then describe the new movie. | H H H |
| 1289 | Fake gnus: bogus animal trivia | Tell us a fictoid -- a humorously false "fact" -- about the nonhuman animal kingdom. | H H |
| 1286 | Mind your P's and B's (and more) | Replace one or more P's in a word, name, or multi-word term with a B or with another letter and define or describe the results. | H 4 |
| 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 |
| 1247 | Script tease | Offer a quote from a script whose title you've given a different plot. | H H H 3 |
| 1242 | Generation Yux | Give us a "then/now" joke. | H |
| 1233 | Not | The Loser Community gets a week off (actually two) from writing contest entries and will have to find something else to do during staff meetings, sermons, romantic breakups, etc. | H H H |
| 1227 | Celebrate ortho-diversity! | Name and describe a new life form -- and no letter in the term may be used twice. | 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 |
| 1221 | Who's kidding whom? | Take two people from history, past or present, and tell what their child would be like | H |
| 1217 | Mergers you wrote: Combine two businesses with puns | Give a clever name for a combination of two or more businesses. | H H 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 |
| 1197 | Picture This -- It's a Bob Staake caption contest | Write a caption for any of the cartoons provided. | H 4 |
| 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 |
| 1187 | Just drop it, okay? | Drop the last letter from an existing word, phrase or name and define the result. | H H |
| 1178 | A ______ of collective nouns | Propose one or more funny new names for groups of things. | 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. | W H |
| 1170 | Derby or not Derby | Breed" any two of the provided racehorses nominated for this year's Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont; and name the foal to reflect both names. | 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 |
| 1164 | 'Wait Wait' for us | Compose a multiple-choice question about a Ridiculous but True fact or event, with two entertaining wrong answers as well as the right one. One of the two wrong answers may be obviously untrue as long as it's funny. | W |
| 1160 | A remeaning task | Redefine an existing word or two-word term beginning with P through Z. | H 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 H |
| 1146 | Stick it to us with a magnet | Suggest a new Style Invitational honorable-mention magnet. | H |
| 1145 | A DICEy situation | Coin a word or multi-word term that contains the letter block D-I-C-E. | H |
| 1144 | Someone else's business | Name a real brand, along with something else it would be a better name for. | H 4 |
| 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 H |
| 1137 | Be a published author! | Give us a spicy title for a boring book, real or imagined. | H |
| 1135 | The meter's running | Suggest actions in daily life that should require a time limit -- maximum or minimum -- and come with an appropriate penalty for running over (or under). | H H |
| 1125 | The song remains the sa | Supply a real song title that has the end or beginning -- or, what the heck, both -- chopped off and describe it. | 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 |
| 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. | H |
| 1104 | A pair of threes | Choose two or three entities represented by a single three-letter combination beginning with E- through H- — see the links at bit.ly/abbrevs-e-h — and say how they are alike or different. | W |
| 1103 | Themes good enough for us | Suggest an existing song to be used as the theme for a TV series or program for comic effect. | W H |
| 1097 | Futz your sign | Select a line from one of the horoscopes appearing anytime from Nov. 6 through Nov. 17 in the Washington Post's daily Style or on washingtonpost.com and "clarify" it with a translation or extra "information". | H |
| 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 |
| 1091 | Good idea! or not. | Come up with a good idea and, through a small change in wording, a bad idea. | H |
| 1086 | Playing the dozens | 1. Start with any 12-letter word, name or multi-word phrase. 2. Add one letter OR drop one letter OR substitute another letter OR switch the position of two letters to create a new term, as in the examples given. 3. Define or describe the result humorously. |
W |
| 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 |
| 1072 | The Tile Invitational | Come up with a 5-, 6-, or 7-letter term by scrambling any of the provided seven-letter ScrabbleGram sets, and define it. | H |
| 1071 | A pair of threes | Choose two or three entities represented by a single three-letter combination at bit.ly/3letterabs and say how they are alike or different. | H |
| 1068 | An iffy proposition | Suggest some humorous action that you would take if you were in someone's position, more or less in the form "If I were _____ my first act would be _____. | H |
| 1065 | The ands have it | Slightly alter ANY well-known phrase in the form "A-and-B" -- it doesn't have to be Latinate/Anglo-Saxon -- and define it. | H H 3 |
| 1058 | Eastwood Ho | Create a good-bad-ugly progression. | H |
| 1056 | Weather or nuts | Coin a term relating to the weather, climate, etc. -- either literal or figurative -- and define it. | H |
| 1052 | Clue us in | Come up with up to 25 creative, funny clues for the words and multi-word terms that appear in the provided grid. | H |
| 1049 | Be rating | Come up with a new movie rating and describe it. | H |
| 1045 | Songs for the asking | Take a sentence, phrase or title from a song and provide a funny question it might answer. | W H |
| 1042 | Tour de Fours X: Go SANE | Create a new word or two-word term containing the letter block S-A-N-E -- in any order, but consecutively, and define it. | H |
| 1041 | What have you got to lose? | Answer a question, real or rhetorical, that appears in a song. | H |
| 1037 | Outrage us | Find something offensive about an inoffensive name of a product, organization, place, etc. | H |
| 1023 | Hai there, Martians! | Write one or more humorous haiku that will greet the Martians or share a little nugget of what life is like on Earth. | 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 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 H |
| 979 | The madding crowd | Suggest funny, original ways to tick people off. | H |
| 977 | Lost in Translation 2.0 | Translate a line of text from English into another language using Google Translate; then copy that result and translate it back into English. You may also make intermediate steps into one or more other languages. | H H H |
| 976 | Join now! | Combine the beginning and end of any two words or names in this week's Style Invitational or Style Conversational columns to make a new term, and define it. | H H H 4 |
| 975 | Gone mything | Debunk a "Sixth Myth" about one of more of the recent "5 Myths" topics provided. | 2 |
| 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 |
| 962 | Questionable journalism | Take any sentence (or a major part of it) that appears in the Post or in an article on washingtonpost.com anytime from now through March 19 and supply a question it could answer. | H H |
| 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 H H |
| 953 | Clue us in | Come up with creative, funny clues for the words and multi-word terms in the crossword puzzle that's already run in The Post. | H |
| 949 | Analogies | Give us an analogy using "a is to b as x is to y." | H H |
| 948 | Look back in Inker | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 891 through 945 (except for Week 896, which was the same contest for the previous year). | H H H 3 |
| 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 |
| 946 | Another round of Bierce | Write a clever definition of a word, name or multi-word term. | H |
| 943 | Ask backward XXIX | You are on "Jeopardy!" You supply the questions for as many of the provided answers as you like. | 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 |
| 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. | 4 |
| 931 | Limerixicon 8 | Supply a humorous limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term beginning with the letters ea- through -el. | H H |
| 928 | Play feature | Use the title of a movie as the answer to a riddle or other question. | H H |
| 923 | Chemical Wordfare | Create a new chemical element or other chemical term. | H |