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PERMANENT INKSTAIN FOR TODD DELAP



WEEK TITLE SYNOPSIS INK Types
1456 The hunting of the snark Ask an insulting rhetorical question in the form (or a variation) of "Is that your _______ or _______? H
1454 Punku 3 -- haiku with a pun Create a haiku containing a pun or similar wordplay. 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 H 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
1451 Could have said it worse ourselves Give us a humorously bad "first draft" of a famous line from history, literature or entertainment. 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
1446 Clue us in -- and we spill the beans Write novel clues for as many as 25 answers in the provided grid, across or down, first substituting your own letters for any covered ones. 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
1436 Haven't seen it: Fun with movie titles Misinterpret a movie title in a supposed plot description. H H H
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. H
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
1431 The On-Our-Way-Back Machine Tell us how (in some funny way) things will be different as we emerge from the pandemic. 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
1428 The Tile Invitational VIII Create a five-, six-, or seven-letter word (or phrase) by scrambling the letters of any of the provided sets and define it. 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 H
1421 Alternaugural Address '21 Write a humorous passage -- a "quote", an observation, a joke, a dialogue, a poem, anything -- using only words that appear in Biden's inaugural address. 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
1400 Back on track with our classic 'foal' contest Breed" any two of the provided names of the 100 horses nominated for the 2020 Triple Crown races and name the "foal" to humorously reflect the parents' names. 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
1384 Of course there are stupid questions! Give us stupid questions, especially ones reflecting Our Current Situation. 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. H
1373 Prime time for some Amazon reviews Send us a humorous "review" for any of the provided Amazon-listed items. 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
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. 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
1326 Foaling around Breed" any two names from the provided list of 100 horses and name the foal to reflect both names. H
1324 Chapter and worse Tell or describe a Bible story, or another classical or folk tale, very briefly (75 words would be lengthy) in the voice of a particular author or other person. H
1322 Back to the drawing board Come up with an idea for an invention that still needs a bug ironed out. H
1321 Pumping Prime: Amazon reviews Send us a humorous "review" (like the provided samples from our earlier contests) for any of the provided items. H H 2
1319 The Tile Invitational VI Create a five-, six-, or seven-letter word (or phrase) by scrambling the letters of any of the provided sets and define it. H
1316 Lies, damn lies, with statistics Tell us some bogus trivia using "statistics" or some bogus quantitative meaure. W H
1315 Clue us in -- our reverse crossword Supply clever, funny clues for as many as 25 of the 74 words and multi-word terms in the provided grid. H H
1300 Botch office sensations Add "13" to an existing movie title, and some humorous trouble to the plot. H
1285 That is so wrong! Supply a trivia question along with both the correct answer and a cleverly "wrong" guess. H
1264 A cry for Yelp: 'Review' any place Write a humorous review, positive or negative, of anyplace (real of fictional) one might visit. L H
1256 Picture this -- a caption contest Provide a funny caption for any of the provided cartoons. H
1248 C'mon, fess up! Send us a brief "confession" -- there will be categories for true and just-kidding. H
1246 Questionable journalism Find any sentence (or a substantive part of a sentence) that appears in The Post or another publication, in print or online, dated Sept. 21-Oct. 2, and pair it with a question it might answer. H
1245 Call us reprehensible . . . Complain in a humorously missing-the-point way about something that has appeared in The Washington Post (in print or online) recently, or in another publication. H
1244 Primed for product reviews Send us a creative "review" for any of the provided items that are listed on Amazon. H
1230 What in creation . . . ? Supply a brief monologue or dialogue about a Creator's specifications or planning for some living being. H
1216 As the word turns 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. 3
1211 The best tweets in history Write a stupidly disparaging tweet (140 characters or fewer, including spaces) about some laudable figure of past or present, true or fictional. H
1199 We want some bad choices Offer one or more funny Questions for Terrible People, as shown. H H
1191 Mess with our heads Reinterpret (or comment wryly on) a headline appearing in The Post (print or online) and dated Sept. 1-12 by writing a bank head, or subtitle H
1190 You're workin' on a chain, gang Create a chain of no more than 15 proper nouns — names of people (real or fictional), products, places, etc. — including one title of a work — in which each name relates somehow to the previous one. H H
1185 The Rorschach of the crowd Interpret one of more of the provided genuine inkblots. You may look at them upside down or sideways. H
1183 C'mon, be honest with us Write something in roughly the form "If X were more honest, (then) Y. H H H
1182 Where in the wor(l)d? (1) On What3words.com, find one or more humorously appropriate (or ironic) three-word codes at a particular place; or 2) find a three-word code, tell us where it is, and tell us what ought to be there. H H H
1179 Blasted alphabetical contests . . . Coin a three-word phrase whose words begin with A, B and C -- in any order -- and describe it. H
1175 Good luck with 13 Make up a word whose Scrabble letter values add up to exactly 13, and define it. 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
1172 Pieces of 'Pie' Write a short passage -- an observation, a joke, a dialogue, a poem, anything -- using only words that appear in the song "American Pie". H 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 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
1162 An 8-year Re-Onion Write a fictional Onion-type headline. H
1161 Give us four Pinocchios Tell us some false "facts" about politicians, present or past. H
1158 What have we here? Tell us what one or more of these objects really are. H
1157 Clue us in -- a backward crossword Supply clever, funny clues to up to 25 of the words and multi-word terms in the provided grid. H
1150 A deviant character Change the name of person or animal -- real or fictional -- by adding or subtracting one letter; substituting one letter for another; or switching the positions of two nearby letters, and describing the results. H
1145 A DICEy situation Coin a word or multi-word term that contains the letter block D-I-C-E. W
1144 Someone else's business Name a real brand, along with something else it would be a better name for. L H
1143 Ask Backwards Provided are 15 answers, separated by asterisks. You supply the questions. H
1142 Two-faced tweets Combine two well-known names into a Twitter handle, and write a tweet (no more than 140 characters and spaces) that that portmanteau person might write. 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
1130 Yux Redux: Play on a foreign phrase Make a word play on a foreign phrase or term (or English phrase using foreign words) and describe it. H
1128 Drone for a loop Give us some novel uses for a CICADA micro-drone, assuming that anyone can get one, and that it can have a micro-camera, micro-grips, etc. H H
1126 Picture this Provide a humorous caption for any of the cartoons provided. H H
1124 Heed! Indeed: Advice verse Write one of the provided reminders as a humorous poem of eight lines or fewer. H
1123 The Tile Invitational III Give us a five-, six-, or seven-letter word (or two words) by scrambling the letters of any of the provided seven-letter sets. H
1119 We want hue so bad Invent a name for a color and describe it. H
1116 Punning in place Create a new term using only the letters in a place name. You don't have to use all the letters, but you can't use a letter more often than it appears in the word. H
1115 Our type o' headline Change a headline in an article or ad in the Washington Post and then add a "bank head" or subtitle. 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
1110 The mama of all humor Write a [Someone’s] Mama joke for some well-known figure, past or present, real or fictional. H
1107 Send us the bill Combine two or more names from the list of members of Congress on this page to "cosponsor" a bill based on their combined last names, and state its purpose. 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. H H
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. H
1102 Let's get Sirius Suggest a new radio channel and describe it. H H
1098 Prime time for some Amazon reviews Send us a creative "review" for any of the provided items that are listed on Amazon. H H
1096 Picture this Write a humorous caption for any of the provided Bob Staake cartoons. H
1095 TankaWanka! Write a TankaWanka about something that's been in the news lately. The poem must consist of five lines of 5, 7, 5, 7 and 7 syllables in that order. And it must include at least one rhyme. H
1093 You're only as rich as you fee What are some really bad ideas for various businesses to make a few more bucks? H H 2
1091 Good idea! or not. Come up with a good idea and, through a small change in wording, a bad idea. H
1090 Talk undirty to us Write a humorous poem in any form (no more than eight lines) that includes one or more of the provided words; the word must make sense in the poem in its TRUE meaning. H
1088 Ask backwards with our answers, your questions Supply the questions to as many of the 16 supplied answers as you like. 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.		 L
1083 Everybody get appy Offer up an idea for either a humorously useful app or a humorously counterproductive one. 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. H H
1077 Time marches Swiftly Give us a novel Tom Swifty, playing on either an adverb or a verb (e.g., "We care about the little people, the BP chairman gushed"). H 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 H
1069 It's a small, small world Write a humorous poem of no more than eight lines -- it doesn't have to rhyme -- using only the top 1,000 words on Wiktionary.org's list of the most common among 20 million words found in movie and TV scripts. 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
1064 HistoRebuffs Alter some moment in history and tell us -- in no more than about 50 words -- the likely outcome. H
1061 Less taste, more fill-in Give us a novel clue for any word or phrase in which the remaining letters in the provided crossword puzzle fit, across or down. H
1057 Sportin' lie Give us some fake sports trivia. H
1053 Questionable journalism Quote an actual sentence, from The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, or another print or online publication dated between Dec. 26 and Jan. 6, and follow it with a question that the sentence might answer. H
1050 Just redo it Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 1000 through Week 1046. L
1048 Ask Backwards You supply the questions to as many of the provided answers as you like. H
1039 Shookespeare Combine any of the words in Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, in any order, to create a humorous sentence or longer passage. H