| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1608 | Stick It | An election bumper sticker contest | H |
| 1590 | All You Need Is Ink | Take a line from a Beatles song and rhyme it with your own. | H |
| 1544 | Same Difference | Tell us humorously how items on the list are alike, different, or otherwise linked. | 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 |
| 1472 | Phony money -- tell us fake financial trivia | Tell us some fake trivia about money or the financial system. | H |
| 1465 | Put your '22 cents in for our annual pre-timeline | Name some humorous news event to happen in 2022. | H |
| 1457 | What is Ask Backwards XL? | You are on "Jeopardy!"; various answers are provided. You provide the questions. | H |
| 1436 | Haven't seen it: Fun with movie titles | Misinterpret a movie title in a supposed plot description. | 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 |
| 1427 | Rocky of ages, or Badenov for you? | State any historical event -- right up to 2021 -- in the provided "A, or B" format. | 4 |
| 1410 | Legends of the fall -- more fictoids | Tell us some bogus trivia about autumn, or things that happen (or have happened) in autumn. | H |
| 1408 | Re-Organization | Slightly change the name of a nonprofit organization and describe it. | H |
| 1392 | Picture this -- caption these cartoons | Write a caption, either descriptive or in dialogue, for any of the provided Bob Staake cartoons. | 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. | I |
| 1356 | Ask Backwards 38 | Sixteen "answers" are provided. Tell us the questions. | H |
| 1350 | Here's inspo for new-word poems | Write a poem of eight lines or fewer featuring one or more of these recent additions to m-w.com. | 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 |
| 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 |
| 1336 | Two ways about it | What's something (printable) you could say in two -- or more -- of the provided situations. | 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 |
| 1325 | Stand up and jeer | Give us some original standup jokes that would have been good at this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner. | H |
| 1316 | Lies, damn lies, with statistics | Tell us some bogus trivia using "statistics" or some bogus quantitative meaure. | H |
| 1300 | Botch office sensations | Add "13" to an existing movie title, and some humorous trouble to the plot. | H |
| 1294 | As the word turns | “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. | H H |
| 1285 | That is so wrong! | Supply a trivia question along with both the correct answer and a cleverly "wrong" guess. | H |
| 1280 | A la'ugh' a minute with 'air quotes' | Highlight part of a word, name or short phrase in "air quotes" to give it a new meaning or description. | H |
| 1277 | Come into Beeing with neologisms | From any of the 15 provided Spelling Bee letter sets, coin a new term of one or two words and define it humorously. You may also supply an especially clever or funny definition of a real term. | H |
| 1273 | Restocking the Cabinet | Explain why a particular person -- or thing -- ought to fill a Cabinet post or other U.S. government position. | H |
| 1269 | Mess with our (or other) heads | Reinterpret (or comment wryly on) a headline appearing in The Post (print or online) or another publication and dated March 1-12 by writing a bank head. | 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 |
| 1264 | A cry for Yelp: 'Review' any place | Write a humorous review, positive or negative, of anyplace (real of fictional) one might visit. | H H |
| 1262 | Clue us in -- a backward crossword | Supply one or more creative clues for the provided filled-in crossword grid -- as many as 25 clues in all. | H H H |
| 1260 | What lies (are) ahead for 2018 | Jokingly predict some news event to happen in 2018. | H |
| 1256 | Picture this -- a caption contest | Provide a funny caption for any of the provided cartoons. | H |
| 1251 | Thanking outside the box | Tell us something to be thankful for. | H |
| 1249 | Ask Backwards 36 | Choose any of the 15 provided items and follow it with a question that it could humorously answer. | 4 |
| 1248 | C'mon, fess up! | Send us a brief "confession" -- there will be categories for true and just-kidding. | H |
| 1229 | Gorey bits from A to Z | Send us one of more edgy rhyming alphabet-primer couplets. | H |
| 1228 | That movie is SO about you | Name someone who was the "secret inspiration" for a certain movie. | H |
| 1207 | Clue us in -- a reverse crossword | Supply clever, funny clues to up to 25 of the 72 words and multi-word terms in the provided grid. | H |
| 1204 | Well, at least . . . | Note some good news for the coming year to comfort -- or "comfort" -- those who are depressed about the change of presidential administration. | 3 |
| 1197 | Picture This -- It's a Bob Staake caption contest | Write a caption for any of the cartoons provided. | H |
| 1196 | Hyphen the Terrible | Combine either half of a hyphenated word or compound term with either half of another such term to create a new hyphenated term, and describe the result humorously. | 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 |
| 1188 | Just short words, one more time | Explain some concept or philosophy entirely in words of one syllable. | 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 |
| 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 |
| 1161 | Give us four Pinocchios | Tell us some false "facts" about politicians, present or past. | 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 |
| 1151 | To [a glass], snarkly | Write a short, snarky (but witty) note to one of the provided glassbowls. | H |
| 1148 | It's TankaWanka II | 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 |
| 1138 | Show us your touché | Offer an elegantly snide (and original) insult of anyone living or dead. | H |
| 1134 | The 'Sty'le Invitational Red'ux' | Put quotation marks around part of a word, name or phrase and define the result. | H 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 1092 | Are we having funds yet? | Suggest a humorous fundraising "challenge" for any organization. | 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. | I |
| 1089 | It's E-Z Find-a-Word -- your own! | 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. | H 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 |
| 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. | W 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 |
| 1060 | Picture this | Write a caption, or captions, for one or more of the provided cartoons. | W |
| 1059 | With parens like these . . . | Add some words in parentheses to a well-known song title to make it funnier in some way. | 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 |
| 1048 | Ask Backwards | You supply the questions to as many of the provided answers as you like. | H H H H |
| 1037 | Outrage us | Find something offensive about an inoffensive name of a product, organization, place, etc. | H |
| 1034 | What's to like? | Supply an original joke of the form "I like my [your choice] the way I like my [something else of your choice]: [some clever, funny parallel]. | H H H |
| 1033 | LimeriXicon | Supply a humorous limerick significantly featuring any English word, name or term beginning with "fa-". | H |
| 1029 | Ditty Harry | Write a descriptive theme song for a well-known movie, set to a well-known tune. | H |
| 1022 | What's the diff? | Explain how any two of the provided items are alike or different. | H |
| 1019 | What a turnoff | Tell us some creative things that children and families could do during Screen-Free Week. | H |
| 1011 | Top these! | Try your hand at any of the contests mentioned in this look back. | H |
| 1010 | Picture this | Write a caption for any of the five provided cartoons. | H |
| 1007 | Clue us in | Come up with creative, funny clues for the words and multi-word terms in the provided grid. | H |
| 1006 | It's a ... a ... | Create a new superhero (or duo) and describe the superpower, or not-very-superpower. | H |
| 995 | Ask backwards | We give you the "answers" and you supply jokes in the form of a question. | H |
| 994 | Stick it to us | Suggest a slogan for one of our two new honorable-mention Loser Magnets for 2012-2013. | H |
| 980 | Def jam | Supply a humorous definition for any of the provided Loser-penned neologisms. | 4 |
| 975 | Gone mything | Debunk a "Sixth Myth" about one of more of the recent "5 Myths" topics provided. | I |
| 963 | The overlap dance | Send us a Before & After "person" whose name combines two people's names, real or fictional (okay, you can use animals' names, too), and describe the person in a funny way. | 3 |
| 960 | Raving reviews | Send us a creative "review" for any of the provided items that are listed on Amazon. | H |
| 958 | All's Weller | Write a "wellerism," a sentence that starts with a quote, often a short proverb, and goes on to include some sort of wordplay on something in the quote. | H |
| 956 | Give us some bad ideas | Finish any of the provided "You know" phrases. | 4 |
| 953 | Clue us in | Come up with creative, funny clues for the words and multi-word terms in the crossword puzzle that's already run in The Post. | H |
| 942 | Singular ideas | Give us an idea for a contest for which there's likely only one good entry. | 4 |
| 934 | Same difference | Explain how any two items in the provided list are similar or different. | H |
| 926 | Outrageous fortunes | Come up with a fortune cookie line that you'd like to see. | W |
| 925 | A remeaning task | Redefine a word in the dictionary beginning with I through O. | H |
| 919 | Good Luck With 13 | Alter a 13-letter word, phrase or name by one letter (add a letter, drop a letter, switch two letters somewhere in the word, or substitute one letter for another) and describe the result. | H 2 |
| 905 | Anticdotes | Give us an untrue anecdote responding to one of these past Editor's Query topics. | H 2 |
| 902 | What's the good news? | Take any sentence, or substantive part of a sentence, or a headline from an article or ad in The Washington Post or washingtonpost.com from Jan. 7 to Jan. 18 and make it sound upbeat (or not so bad). | 4 |
| 894 | Look Back in Inker | Enter any Style Invitational from Week 841 through Week 890 (except for Week 844). | H |
| 893 | Give us a hint | Write a humorously witty story in 25 words or fewer. | H |
| 890 | Double-teaming | Combine the names of any two pro sports teams -- even from different sports -- and describe the result. | H |
| 878 | Safety in blunders | Tell us a way to make the nation more secure. | H |
| 874 | Stat Us | Write a funny Facebook status line. | H 2 |
| 872 | Har Monikers | Combine the first parts of each word in a famous person's or character's name -- in order -- and define it or use it in a sentence that somehow refers to its source. | H |
| 865 | No Googlenopes left | Come up with a humorous Googlenope. | H |
| 864 | Oonerspisms | Spoonerize a single word or a name by transposing different part of the word (more than two adjacent letters), and define the resultant new term. | H |
| 861 | It's incumbent upon us | Combine the names of two or more freshman members of Congress to create "joint legislation." This week's pool of legislators includes only those who were elected to their seats before 1994, the first year we ran the freshman contest. | H |
| 843 | Prefrains | Provide a sentence or two of lead-in to the first line of a well-known book, poem, or song. | 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. | L |
| 832 | Clue Us In | You supply one or more clues for the words in a filled-in grid. | H 2 |
| 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. | H |
| 821 | Spit the Difference | How are any of the items on the list above alike or different? | H |
| 58 | PLAY IT AGAIN, DENZEL | Bring Casablanca into the 1990s. Write the opening of a plot outline, in 120 words or fewer. | 2 |