| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1561 | Let It Be a Lesson to Us | Tell us some things to be learned from Costco, the bathroom, TV shows, etc. | H |
| 1486 | No can do: Signs of incompetence | Give us a clue that someone was incompetent in a given field. | H |
| 1040 | IRS my case | Schedule A: Suggest a novel way for the government to determine taxes. Schedule B: Suggest a deduction that you'd like to take, or that some real or fictional person past or present might like to take. Schedule C: Suggest a cause you'd rather check off $3 for. |
2 |
| 987 | Bank shots | Take any headline, verbatim, appearing anywhere in The Washington Post or on washingtonpost.com from Sept. 6 through Sept. 17 and reinterpret it by adding a "bank head," or subtitle. | H H |
| 975 | Gone mything | Debunk a "Sixth Myth" about one of more of the recent "5 Myths" topics provided. | H |
| 967 | Overlap dance II | Create a phrase that overlaps two terms, each of two words or more, and describe the result. | H |
| 946 | Another round of Bierce | Write a clever definition of a word, name or multi-word term. | H |
| 936 | Hoho contendere | Slightly alter a well-known foreign-language term and define it. | H |
| 935 | The 400 blows | Write a humorous poem--choose your form--about the Virginia earthquake, Hurricane Irene or another well-known natural event. | H |
| 862 | Be cheerful | Send us a cheer or fight song for any pro sports team or any national team. | H |
| 838 | Picture This | Provide a caption for any of these pictures. | H |
| 836 | Other People's Business | Describe what might happen if any of the above institutions (a) were run by an institution of your choice or (b) ran an institution of your choice. | 3 |
| 823 | Wryku | Compose a humorous (or at least wry or clever) haiku. | H |
| 792 | Clue Us In | Compile a set of funny alternative clues to a crossword penned by Ace Constructor Paula Gamache. | H |
| 778 | Tied Games | Combine any two sports or nonathletic activities into a single sport or game. | H |
| 769 | Splice Work If You Can Get It | Combine two words -- overlapping by at least two letters -- into what's known by polysyllabic types as a portmanteau word, and by the rest of us as mash word, and define it. | H |
| 766 | Think to Shudder | Come up with scenarios that are even more awkward (and more imaginative) than the wincers mentioned above. | H |
| 751 | Strike Gold | Slightly change the name of an existing or former TV show to create a program that can scab the writers' strike. | 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 H H H 3 3 |
| 740 | Give Us a Hint | Offer clues in various situations that something isn't working out well. | H |
| 714 | Amalgamated Steal | Merge two or more company or product names into a new, ORIGINAL company or product. | H |
| 712 | Another Time Around the Track | Breed any two of the winning "offspring" included in the results of Week 708, and name THEIR foal. | H |
| 709 | A Return Engagement | Come up with some novel change to the tax code: a tax on something ought to be taxed, a credit for something that should be rewarded, what the $3 should go to instead of presidential campaigns, etc. | 3 |
| 705 | Simile Outrageous | Come up with funny analogies, perhaps with some 21st-century references. | H |
| 698 | Let's Get Personnel | Send us some humorously creative questions that a job interviewer would ask an applicant, or some questions it might be fun to ask the interviewer. | H |
| 692 | Reinkernation | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 640 through Week 688. Every entry must include the word "three" or "third" or a creative variation. | 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 |
| 660 | Foaling Down: The Next Generation | Breed any two of the winning "offspring" included in this week's results, and name THEIR foal. | H |
| 646 | Warped Perspectives | Tell us how two different types of people, animals, organizations, etc., would interpret any of the provided cartoons. | H |
| 645 | A Hearty Har Har | Write up a Valentine's sentiment to any personage, or to someone in some generic category. | H |
| 631 | Picture This | What's going on in any of these cartoons? | H |
| 629 | Odd Couplings | Marry or otherwise combine famous names and supply the result. | 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 |
| 588 | Gadget If You Can | Tell us what these nifty, indispensable items are. | H |
| 575 | T Hee Hee | Come up with new ideas for both front and back of the Loser T-shirts. | H |
| 573 | Thine Ad Goest Here | Propose biblical and other literary passages, poems, etc., that could benefit from product placement. | H |
| 569 | Murphy's Lore | Give Eric Murphy advice he deserves on the provided questions. | H |
| 544 | You Gotta Have Heart | Write us some valentine sentiments from one particular person (real or fictional) to another. | H |
| 522 | Being There | Set the agenda for a flash mob, one of those existential, Web-arranged, sudden, pointless, instantaneous but brief gatherings of people at odd places, to do odd things. | 4 |
| 519 | Hey, Baby, What's Your Sector? | Come up with pickup lines that could be heard only in Washington. | H |
| 512 | Live On, Sweet, Earnest Reader | Take the name of any person--living, dead, fictional--and use the letters of his name, in succession, to form the first letters of an expression appropriate to that person. | H |
| 507 | Crocktails | Come up with a drink named for something or someone associated with Washington and describe the drink. | H 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. | 5 |
| 476 | Portmanteautapping | Make a new word by squishing together two existing words. The constituent words must share at least two letters. | H H |
| 474 | Alphabettering | Create a sentence that uses each letter of the alphabet at least once but that would never be heard on the politically correct, genteel, rarefied air of NPR. | 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. | H |
| 454 | Ask Backwards | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? | 4 |
| 439 | No Can Do | Write signs of incompetence. | H |
| 425 | Hyphen the Terrible | Take the first half of any hyphenated word from any story in today's newspaper and combine it with the second half of any other hyphenated word in the same story, and propose a definition of the new word you've created. | 3 |
| 422 | Taught Language | Come up with lessons learned from (1) the movies, (2) popular songs, (3) romance novels or (4) the comics page. | 2 |
| 416 | Diff'rent Jokes | Describe how things might have been different if a famous person, living or dead, had had one of the provided conditions. | H |
| 397 | Sins of Omission | Omit a letter or letters from a real-life sign to create a name for a new business, comically different from the original. Describe the new business or include a slogan that explains it. | H |
| 395 | Devilishly Clever | Describe someone's special little corner of Hell. | H |
| 394 | Life in the Blurbs | Come up with a blurb used to sell a real or imagined book or movie that would be likely to have the opposite of the intended effect. | H |
| 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. | 2 |
| 383 | A Kinder, Gender Nation | Take an noun and give us a reason or two why it should be either masculine or feminine. | 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 |
| 379 | Rather Unusual | Come up with lines that could be uttered by Dan Rather, with his unbearably folksy excesses. | H |
| 376 | Apply Yourself | Supply bad openings to college application biographies. | 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. | H |