PERMANENT INKSTAIN FOR SAM MERTENS

This is what you've done, each Week. I arrange the rows in reverse chronological order, because there are some Losers, and they know who they are, who check up on my points-awarding every Week.

But I would just like to reiterate that such checking up is not a problem for me. I have said many times that each Loser's enlightened self-interest is my best QA.

If you wish to see what your ink was, refer to the Master Contest List or search All Invitational Text. Remember that Types I, P, some H, and sometimes A are seen "above the Report" -- that is, if they are listed here for Week 7777, for example, they will be found in text files or images of Week 7777. Everything else will be found in a "Report" section of a file two, three, or four weeks later; 7781 in this Example.

If you see any error, please let me know, elden.carnahan@gmail.com.

Key to Ink Types:

WKTITLESYNOPSISINK TYPES
1397 Trope springs eternal Use any of the four provided standard settings -- (a) desert island, (b) bartender at a bar, (c) desert, (d) psychiatrist next to a couch -- and describe a cartoon that includes your choice of characters, along with a caption. H
1395 Add nauseam: A plus-one contest Add a "plus one" to some familiar numerical grouping, true or fictional 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 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
1389 TankaWanka 4: Haiku plus tu Write a TankaWanka about something that's been in the news lately. H H H
1387 Movie clips -- drop letters from the middle of a title Delete one or more letters (they must be consecutive) from the middle of a movie title, and describe the resulting new movie. H H
1384 Of course there are stupid questions! Give us stupid questions, especially ones reflecting Our Current Situation. H
1383 Questionable Journalism Choose any sentence (not a headline) in an article or ad in The Washington Post or another publication dated May 7 through May 18, and write a question it might humorously answer. 3 H H
1381 Let's be equinoxious with fictoids about spring Tell us some untrue trivia about springtime or things that happen or happened in the spring. 3
1380 Both sides now Delete one or more letters (in a row) from a word or brief phrase to find another word, and define it. 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
1377 Make your own March Madness Think of some sport, game, art project or other activity that you can conjure up using various items that you might find around the house. 2 H
1376 Get thee to a funnery Add a character (or more) to a Shakespeare play and supply some resulting dialogue. H H
1375 Mess With Our Heads Reinterpret an actual headline (or a major part of it) by adding a bank head, or subtitle. H H H
1373 Prime time for some Amazon reviews Send us a humorous "review" for any of the provided Amazon-listed items. 4 H
1372 Trash talking, 1880-style Write a quatrain or -- heck -- two of Balliol rhyme about some person. H
1370 What's in a name? Write something about a well-known person, real or fictional, using only the letters in that person's name. H
1369 Shoot us some oops Tell us a concise original joke that revolves around a typo or misheard word. H
1368 Picture This -- cartoon captions Supply a caption for one or more of the provided cartoons. H W
1367 Pick me up at work, okay? Give a pickup line from someone in a particular profession, or from a particular person or fictional character. H
1366 Tour de Fours XVI -- It's the LIAR club Coin a word or multi-word term that contains the letter block L-I-A-R and describe it. H
1364 Clue us in Supply clever, funny clues for as many as 25 of the words and multi-word terms in the provided grid. 4 H H
1362 The Year in Redo, Part 1 Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1307 through 1333, except for Weeks 1309-1311. 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). 3 H H H L L
1358 What to your wondering eyes will appear? Write a humorous passage -- a "quote", an observation, a joke, a dialogue, a poem, anything -- using only words that appear in "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (a.k.a "The Night Before Christmas"). 4
1355 The inside word Highlight part of a word, name or short phrase in "air quotes" to give the word a new meaning or description. H H
1354 As the Word turns 5: Taking our vowels "Discover" a word or multiword term that consists of adjacent letters -- in any direction or several directions -- in the provided grid, and provide a humorous definition. W
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
1352 Hee-rotica -- Steamy prose for unsteamy life Write a short steamy scene (100 words would be considered long) about a non-steamy event. H
1351 What concept will you be for Halloween? Give us a creative, clever idea for a timely Halloween costume (for one or more people) or an idea for a party or other activity. You may even send us a photo of an actual new costume you've created this year. 4
1349 Revise and extend these remarks Go to congress.gov/congressional-record and click on the PDF for any day's Congressional Record. Choose any sentence (or substantial part of one) and write a question that it could answer. 2 H W
1348 Same difference Explain humorously how any two or more of the provided items are alike, different or otherwise connected. H
1347 Reologisms Write a clever, funny definition for any of the provided Loser-concocted words and phrases, and/or show they'd be used. 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 H H
1345 The confaketionary -- food fictoids Tell us some comically false "fact" about food, drink or dining. H H
1344 Well, that's just great -- It’s Limerixicon XVI Supply a humorous, previously unpublished limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term beginning with "gr-". H
1342 MRGRS: Mash 2 abbrevs. Combine two acronyms or other abbreviations, whether of entities or expressions, into one big one, and describe it, offer a slogan for the new organization, etc. H H
1341 Portmanteautapping from E to R Coin a portmanteau word beginning with E through R, in which the words overlap by at least two letters, and describe it. H
1339 Songs for a modern error Write humorous lyrics about some modern woe, set to a familiar tune. H
1338 Picture This -- cartoon captions Supply a caption for one or more of the provided cartoons. H
1337 Lidder me this: anagram riddles Write a Q&A joke (or an A followed by a Q, if you're into "Jeopardy!") in which the punchline contains an anagram or one or more relevant words or names. H
1335 Put it in bee-verse! Or . . . Write a humorous poem of eight lines or fewer that includes at least one of the provided words, used in Round 9 or later of this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee; OR: write a joke in Q&A form that uses at least one of the words. H
1334 Mull 'er over: A search for collision Combine any two words, names, abbreviations, etc., from anywhere in the redacted Mueller report, in a two-word or hyphenated phrase and define it. 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
1331 Paste Imperfect Choose a headline or sentence from The Post or another publication, print or online, dated May 9-20, 2019. Then change that headline or other text by:
     A. Deleting up to 40 consecutive characters from it (put brackets around the deleted text);
     B. Adding up to 40 consecutive characters from the same article or ad (write the additions in capital letters);
     or C. Both A and B, as long as the added text goes at the end of your headline or sentence.		 H
1329 Shakespeare + Thee: Tailgaters Select any line from a work by Shakespeare (poetry or prose) and pair it with your own line to create a humorous rhyming couplet. 2
1328 Hooked on 'classic': a do-over Summarize a book or play by any author, or retell a scene (or even a moment) from one, in the style of some other person. H
1327 Mess with our (or anyone's) heads Reinterpret (or comment wryly on) a headline (or a big part of a headline) by writing a bank head, or subtitle. H 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

MOST OF YOUR INK

Here is, I hope, most of your ink to be found in the All Invitational Text list. I have to find these with what are called regular expressions, which is a method used in a lot of programming languages to find and modify certain text strings in larger corpora. Basically I look for something like this:

"Report From Week 758"

or

"And from The Style Invitational four weeks ago . . ."

and then some text, your name, and your town, arranged in this familiar way:

"GlaxoSmithKline: I have six kids named Chesterfield, Winston, Lark, BensonHedges, Doral and Kool. If I name my new baby Nicorette, can I get a free coupon for your products? (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)"

I don't catch everything, but I believe I find 90%.

Unlike in the table to the left, I've arranged these in chronological order, so you can see how your humor matured, like a forgotten cheese deep in the walls of an old house. You started out, perhaps in Year 1, sending in riddles you sort of remembered from grade school, and now look at ya, ain't you Dorothy Parker.





[still working on this ...]