| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1474 | Hyphen the Terrible | Combine one side of a hyphenated word or phrase with one side of another such term -- either side can be the end or the beginning -- to create a new term. AND! Both halves of the term must come from the same issue of a newspaper (The Post or another one) or published the same day on its website, Feb. 3 through 14. | 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 |
| 1401 | How hai? A joke-haiku contest | Write a joke (roughly) in the "It's so xxx" genre as a haiku. | H |
| 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 H |
| 1393 | Second chance (acned conches?) for anagrams | Describe any of the provided anagram businesses, or offer its slogan. | L |
| 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 |
| 1229 | Gorey bits from A to Z | Send us one of more edgy rhyming alphabet-primer couplets. | H H |
| 1228 | That movie is SO about you | Name someone who was the "secret inspiration" for a certain movie. | 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 |
| 1217 | Mergers you wrote: Combine two businesses with puns | Give a clever name for a combination of two or more businesses. | 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. | H |
| 1173 | Tinker with the recipe | Slightly change the name of a food or brand of food (or something else in the food industry) and describe it, or write a slogan, jingle, etc. | H |
| 1169 | Be caustic by acrostic | Review or otherwise describe a movie, book, play or TV show (or Internet equivalent) with words whose first letters spell out the name of the work. | H |
| 1167 | So what's to liken? | Take any two items from the provided list and explain how they're similar or different, or connect them some other way. | W |
| 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 |
| 1163 | Put it in reverse | Spell a word, name or phrase backward and define the result in a way that relates to the original. | H |
| 1160 | A remeaning task | Redefine an existing word or two-word term beginning with P through Z. | H |
| 1134 | The 'Sty'le Invitational Red'ux' | Put quotation marks around part of a word, name or phrase and define the result. | H |
| 1085 | Eww-venirs: Ideas for gift shops | Suggest a humorous--but NOT horribly tasteless--tchotchke, T-shirt, etc., from a real or imagined gift shop at a particular tourist site. | H |
| 1083 | Everybody get appy | Offer up an idea for either a humorously useful app or a humorously counterproductive one. | H |
| 1082 | Band on the pun | Alter the name of a music group or performer slightly -- not necessarily by just one letter, but enough so it's obvious what the original is -- and describe it in some way. | H |
| 1081 | It's the stupidity, stupid | Write us stupid questions that will make us laugh. | H |
| 1078 | Hyphen the Terrible | Combine one side of any hyphenated word or compound term with one side of another word to make a new hyphenated term, and define it humorously. Both halves must appear in the same issue of The Post or another print newspaper, or in writing published the same day on washingtonpost.com or another online publication. | M 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. | M H |
| 1055 | Oh, K! | This week, to commemorate both Kevin Dopart and his 1K ink blots: Change a word, phrase or name by adding one or more K's, and define your new term. | 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 |
| 1051 | Love the tiny tail stain! | Create an anagram -- a text with the letters rearranged -- of any text (except merely someone's name), of any length, referring to something or someone in the news. | 3 |
| 1050 | Just redo it | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 1000 through Week 1046. | H |
| 1049 | Be rating | Come up with a new movie rating and describe it. | H H |
| 1045 | Songs for the asking | Take a sentence, phrase or title from a song and provide a funny question it might answer. | H |
| 971 | Double booking | Come up with a double book with a humorous connection; the first title must be an actual book, while the other may be your own fictitious title or a second real book. | 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 |
| 959 | Out of network | Move a current or former TV program (or type of programming) to a different network and explain what would change. | H |
| 957 | Fearful Symmetry | Write a clever passage whose successive words are one letter longer until the middle of the passage, and then become one letter shorter. | H |
| 920 | Sarchiasm | Write an original chiasmus, in which the elements of a phrase are inverted for comedic effect. | I |
| 910 | Your ad here | Slightly alter an advertising slogan so that someone else could use it. | H H H |
| 908 | Recast away | Fire an actor or actress from a movie or TV show, past or present, and offer a replacement for the role. | H 3 |
| 907 | Naming rite | Come up with a creative, somehow fitting sponsor for some public facility or part of one. | H H |
| 904 | We move on back | Move the first letter in a word or name to the end of that word and define the resulting word. | T |
| 901 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem about someone who died in 2010. | H |
| 832 | Clue Us In | You supply one or more clues for the words in a filled-in grid. | M |
| 828 | Inhuman Puns | Make a pun on the name of a familiar group, organization or company, and describe it or provide a quote from it. | T |
| 826 | The Inside Word | Take any word -- this may include the name of a person or place -- put a portion of it in quotation marks, and redefine the word. | W |
| 821 | Spit the Difference | How are any of the items on the list above alike or different? | M |
| 819 | Art Re-View | These objects are not what they seem to be, at first glance. They are something else entirely. What are they? | T H |
| 818 | Name the Day | Cite an actual holiday or one of those silly commemorative days, weeks or months for which you can find previous evidence, and supply a snarky description or slogan. | H |
| 817 | Flopflip | Reverse the first half and second half of a word or name and define the result. | H |
| 814 | There Will Be Bloodline | Breed any two of the winning "offspring" included in this week's results, and name their foal. | H |
| 812 | Rx-Related Humor | Offer up some entirely false medical or psychological "fact. | H |
| 809 | Unkindest Cutlines | Supply cutlines, or captions, for any of these newspaper photos. | H |
| 807 | Pretty Graphic Expressions | Express some insight as an equation or other mathematical expression. | T |
| 806 | DQ Very Much | Give us a phrase or sentence that would nip a potential relationship in the bud (or elsewhere). | H H |
| 805 | Brand Eccchs | Give us an original name in any of the above categories (not an actual badly named product). | T H |
| 804 | Our Type o' Joke | Change a headline by one letter, or switch two letters, in a headline (or most of a headline) appearing on an article or ad in The Washington Post or on washingtonpost.com between Feb. 14 and 23, and elaborate on it in a "bank" headline (subhead) or a brief first sentence of an article that would run under it. | H |
| 800 | Compairison | Briefly define or sum up an existing word or short phrase, then change it very slightly and do the same with the result. | H |
| 790 | If Only! | Explain how the world would be different had some event not occurred. | M |
| 789 | Doctrine in The House? | State a humorous, original "doctrine" for a person or other entity. | M I H H H |
| 786 | Top of the Staake | So get your thoughts provoked for No. Umpteen of our cartoon caption contest. | H |
| 785 | The Ballad Box | Write a short, humorous song somehow relating to the presidential campaign, set to a familiar tune. | T H |
| 784 | Words to The Wiseacres | Give us some proverbs for 21st-century life. | H 4 |
| 783 | The Shill Game | Name a celebrity or fictional character to endorse a real product or company. | H H H H H H |
| 782 | That's the Ticket! | Explain why any of the items on the list below is qualified to be President of the United States. | H |
| 781 | Our Greatest Hit | Start with a word or multi-word term that begins with I, J, K or L; either add one letter, subtract one letter, replace one letter or transpose two adjacent letters; and define the new word. | H |
| 780 | Location, Location, Location | Say how you know you're in a particular place. | M |
| 779 | Gripe for the Picking | Rant about any issue that wouldn't make your top 100 for airing in The Post. | T |
| 772 | Make It Simile, Stupid | Translate a sentence or two of literature or other good writing so that "Los Angeles residents under 40" can appreciate it. | W |
| 767 | Questionable Journalism | Find any sentence (or a substantive part of a sentence) that appears in the Post or in an article on washingtonpost.com from May 31 through June 9 and come up with a question it might answer. | H |