| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1613 | What's the Worst That Could Happen? | After the election, we mean. And be funny about it. | H H |
| 1609 | Saved! | Tell us funny ways to be thrifty in these parlous times | H |
| 1606 | The Cold New Trend | What would be an even sillier new fad than decorator refrigerator shelves? | H |
| 1597 | The Farce of July | Give us new ways to celebrate Independence Day. | H |
| 1590 | All You Need Is Ink | Take a line from a Beatles song and rhyme it with your own. | M 4 |
| 1587 | The Trite Stuff | Replace some well-worn phrases with better ones. | H H |
| 1586 | Pun for the Roses | Our annual crazy-popular horse 'breeding' wordplay contest. | H |
| 1584 | Seeds of Change | Make an anagram of a name-brand product. | H |
| 1583 | A Thousand Words | Write a funny poem about the artwork of your choice. | T |
| 1579 | Captions Courageous | Write a description for any of six photos | H H |
| 1578 | The Pepys Show | Give us a diary entry from anyone in history. | H H |
| 1576 | Praise the Lurid! | Give us clickbait headlines for mundane stories. | H |
| 1569 | Look Back in Inker -- Our 2023 retrospective, Part 1 | Enter or reenter our Week 1-25 contests. | H H |
| 1567 | Picture This | A caption contest | H 4 |
| 1565 | Oh, For Namesakes! | Compare two people who share part of a name. | H |
| 1561 | Let It Be a Lesson to Us | Tell us some things to be learned from Costco, the bathroom, TV shows, etc. | H |
| 1560 | The 'Hole Story | Write us a funny 'Am I The Asshole' question | 3 |
| 1559 | As the Word Turns | 'Discover' new words by snaking through this random grid | H H |
| 1557 | Tailgating On the Highway | Pair a Dylan line with your own rhyming one | H |
| 1551 | Ask Backwards XLII | We give the answers. You give the questions. | H |
| 1549 | The Tile Invitational X | It's our 10th running of this coin-a-word game. | H |
| 1545 | Their Base Behavior | Tell humorously how some business or organization could alter its product or message to appeal to Trump’s cult. | H H |
| 1543 | F Things Up | Neologisms by adding Fs or changing letters to F | H |
| 1540 | Picture This | It's caption contest time, with eight motley pictures to choose from. | H |
| 1536 | Colt Following | Now that we have the winner and punners-up of our venerable foal-name contest, it's time for 'grandfoals'. | H |
| 1534 | Pun for the Roses | Our renowned horse name 'breeding' contest returns! | H |
| 1533 | The Very Last 'Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions' | Tell us a stupid question followed by a funny retort. | H H |
| 1532 | We Bee Back With Neologisms | Make up words using letter sets from the NYT Spelling Bee game | H |
| 1531 | The Worst New Contest Ever | Describe something that would be worse than a second Trump presidency | H |
| 1530 | Mess With Our Heads | Reinterpret any headline by adding a 'bank head'. | H H |
| 1523 | Where in Hell ...? | Name a "circle" for some "evil", plus a suitable punishment | H |
| 1522 | Questionable Journalism | Find a sentence published in the next week and tell us what question it could answer | H |
| 1520 | Nextra! Nextra! | Read All About it. Predict the big news events of 2023 | H |
| 1509 | MASH MASH: combine 2 one-word movies | Combine two single-word movie titles to make a new movie and describe it. | I H |
| 1507 | All over the map! | Choose one of the contiguous 48 U.S. states or D.C. Then write a funny slogan for that state by “traveling a route” from that state into several others. Use the first letters of the states in your route as the first letters of the words in your slogan. | H |
| 1505 | Munici-pals | Choose any two or more real U.S. or Canadian towns — they need to show up on a Google search — and come up with a joint endeavor they would undertake. | H |
| 1500 | These go to 15 | Make up a word or phrase whose Scrabble letter values add up to exactly 15 (no blanks!) and define it. | 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 |
| 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 |
| 1491 | The add biz | Choose any word, name or phrase beginning with A throough E, then add any single letter of the alphabet to it -- one or more times -- and define the result or show how it would be used. | H 3 |
| 1488 | Let's recycle! | Come up with humorous uses for ANY product or combination of products listed at RepurposeMaterials.com, including but no restricted to the provided list. | H 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 |
| 1485 | Switchcraft -- transpose two letters in a word | Switch the positions of two letters within a word, name, title or phrase, then describe the result. | 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 |
| 1467 | The Year in Redo, Part 1 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1413 through 1439, except for Weeks 1414-1416. | H H H |
| 1465 | Put your '22 cents in for our annual pre-timeline | Name some humorous news event to happen in 2022. | H H |
| 1464 | Picture this -- a caption contest | Write a caption, either descriptive or in dialogue, for any of the provided cartoons. | 2 |
| 1461 | It's the eponymy, stupid | Create an eponym -- a word based on the name of a well-known person -- define it, and perhaps use it in a humorous sentence. | H H |
| 1458 | Do adjust your set: TV anagrams+ | Use all the letters of any TV show (including streamed ones), past or present, to create new show; or it can be an episode of the original. | H |
| 1457 | What is Ask Backwards XL? | You are on "Jeopardy!"; various answers are provided. You provide the questions. | H H |
| 1456 | The hunting of the snark | Ask an insulting rhetorical question in the form (or a variation) of "Is that your _______ or _______? | H |
| 1455 | Good idea! Or not. | Cite a "good idea' and, with a small change of wording, a "bad idea". | H |
| 1453 | Haven't read it -- mis-subtitle a book | Choose any book title listed on Amazon and misinterpret it by adding a subtitle. | H |
| 1452 | As the Word Turns | Discover" a word or multiword term that consists of adjacent letters -- in any direction or several directions, up, down, back, forth, diagonally -- in the provided grid, and provide a humorous definition. | 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 |
| 1444 | It's a whole new all-game | Slightly change the name of a sport, sports event or similar pastime to create a new one, and briefly describe it. | H |
| 1439 | Vowel Movement: The Musical | Choose a song title; remove all the vowels; then add back as many vowels as you like to create a new title, and describe the song. You might also provide a line or two of lyrics. | H |
| 1438 | Nothing but the untruth: Fake trivia about the law | Give us some bogus trivia about the law -- lawyers, courts, judges, police, odd laws, terminology, what have you. | H H |
| 1437 | One-offs: A 'typo' neologism contest | You're a fat-fingered typist: Change a word, name or phrase by either adding or substituting one letter that's adjacent (in any direction) to the original one on a regular QWERTY keyboard, or by doubling the correct letter. | H |
| 1436 | Haven't seen it: Fun with movie titles | Misinterpret a movie title in a supposed plot description. | 3 |
| 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. | 2 |
| 1433 | Questionable Journalism | Choose any sentence (not a headline!) in an article or ad in The Washington Post or another publication dated April 22 through May 3, and write a question it might humorously answer. | 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. | H |
| 1429 | Forsoothsayers | Quote a line or so from any Shakespeare work, and exemplify it with a contemporary quote, real or imagined. | H |
| 1426 | Mess with our (or others') heads | Reinterpret an actual headline (or a major part of it) by adding a bank head, or subtitle. | 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 |
| 1418 | Tour de Fours XVII: Just Undo It | Coin a word or multi-word term containing the letters U-N-D-O -- consecutive but in any order -- and describe it. | 4 |
| 1414 | Divining comedy: 2021 predictions | Name some humorous news event to happen in 2021. | H H |
| 1409 | Skip a groove: Drop a letter or more from a song title | Drop one or more letters from somewhere in the middle of a song title and describe the new song, and/or quote some lyrics from it. | 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 |
| 1403 | Who was that masked man? | Current a short listing for a current or past TV show that has a coronavirus story line, or one reflecting some other issue in the news right now. | H |
| 1399 | The lie-zy days of summer | Tell us some bogus trivia about the summer or things that happen or have happened in the summer. | H |
| 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 |
| 1393 | Second chance (acned conches?) for anagrams | Describe any of the provided anagram businesses, or offer its slogan. | H |
| 1391 | No-covid zone -- a neologism contest | Coin a new word or phrase that lacks C, O, V, I and D and describe it. | 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 |
| 1385 | Don't you want to see new places? | Change any place name slightly and describe the new place. | H |
| 1384 | Of course there are stupid questions! | Give us stupid questions, especially ones reflecting Our Current Situation. | 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 |
| 1375 | Mess With Our Heads | Reinterpret an actual headline (or a major part of it) by adding a bank head, or subtitle. | H |
| 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 |
| 1361 | 2020 vision -- the year in preview | Name some humorous news event to happen in 2020. | 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 1326 | Foaling around | Breed" any two names from the provided list of 100 horses and name the foal to reflect both names. | H |
| 1323 | Selected shortened subjects | Delete one or more letters from the beginning or end (or both) of a movie title and describe the resulting movie. | H |
| 1309 | The Year in Redo, Part 1 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1255 through Week 1281. | 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 |
| 1266 | The Tile Invitational V | Create a five-, six-, or seven-letter word (or phrase) by scrambling the letters of any of the provided sets and define it. | H |
| 1217 | Mergers you wrote: Combine two businesses with puns | Give a clever name for a combination of two or more businesses. | H |
| 1183 | C'mon, be honest with us | Write something in roughly the form "If X were more honest, (then) Y. | H |
| 1175 | Good luck with 13 | Make up a word whose Scrabble letter values add up to exactly 13, and define it. | H 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. | 2 |
| 1162 | An 8-year Re-Onion | Write a fictional Onion-type headline. | H |