| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1614 | The Tile Invitational XI | Make up new words with the letters we give you | 3 |
| 1613 | What's the Worst That Could Happen? | After the election, we mean. And be funny about it. | M |
| 1610 | Wryku | Write a haiku about something in the news. | M |
| 1609 | Saved! | Tell us funny ways to be thrifty in these parlous times | M |
| 1607 | Funny, Init? | Compare two people who have the same initials. | H |
| 1596 | History for the tl;dr Crowd | Sum up an event for the 21st-century reader in a rhyming couplet. | M |
| 1579 | Captions Courageous | Write a description for any of six photos | H |
| 1576 | Praise the Lurid! | Give us clickbait headlines for mundane stories. | H H |
| 1570 | The Invitational, Week 52: Replaying Around -- The 2023 retrospective, Part II | Enter or reenter our Week 26-50. | W |
| 1569 | Look Back in Inker -- Our 2023 retrospective, Part 1 | Enter or reenter our Week 1-25 contests. | H |
| 1568 | Nextra! Nextra! | Tell us the funny news events from 2024 | H |
| 1565 | Oh, For Namesakes! | Compare two people who share part of a name. | H |
| 1560 | The 'Hole Story | Write us a funny 'Am I The Asshole' question | T M |
| 1559 | As the Word Turns | 'Discover' new words by snaking through this random grid | H |
| 1545 | Their Base Behavior | Tell humorously how some business or organization could alter its product or message to appeal to Trump’s cult. | M |
| 1543 | F Things Up | Neologisms by adding Fs or changing letters to F | M H |
| 1542 | Your (B)ad Here | Tweak an ad slogan to use it for another product | H |
| 1528 | It's Our Birthday. Party Like It's 1993. | As the Invite turns 30, enter your choice of contests from our year of infancy | H |
| 1527 | Film Flim-Flam | Use all the letters in a movie title to make a new movie | 4 |
| 1521 | Send Us the Bill | Our "Joint Legislation" contest | T |
| 1503 | Sing of your supper--parodies about food | Write a humorous song on the subject of food. | M |
| 1497 | The if-word | Give us a "what if" scenario and its humorous result | H |
| 1482 | The Tile Invitational IX | Rearrange the letters of any of the letter sets provided to create a new term, then define or describe; you may use all seven letters, but also just six or five. | H |
| 1471 | Tour de Fours XVIII: B-I-D-E with us | Coin a word or phrase containing the letters B-I-D-E -- consecutively but in any order, and describe it. | H H |
| 1463 | Fork over some (new) Spoonerisms | Write and original Q-A joke featuring a spoonerism. | H |
| 1460 | These new words are on fleek | From the provided list, write a humorous poem of eight lines or fewer. | M |
| 1459 | And we quote: 'It's Parody Time' | Write humorous first-person lyrics for a song "by" some particular person. | M |
| 1457 | What is Ask Backwards XL? | You are on "Jeopardy!"; various answers are provided. You provide the questions. | H |
| 1449 | Let's have a get-together | Begin with a real name; append to it a word, name or expression so that they overlap; and finally define or "quote" the resulting phrase or name. | H |
| 1441 | \'Rick rolling: songs as limericks | Sum up or otherwise reflect a well-known song as a limerick. | M |
| 1437 | One-offs: A 'typo' neologism contest | You're a fat-fingered typist: Change a word, name or phrase by either adding or substituting one letter that's adjacent (in any direction) to the original one on a regular QWERTY keyboard, or by doubling the correct letter. | M |
| 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. | T |
| 1415 | The Year in Redo, Part 1 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1360 through 1387, except for Weeks 1361-1363. | 4 |
| 1408 | Re-Organization | Slightly change the name of a nonprofit organization and describe it. | M |
| 1402 | The fourteeners--a neologism contest | Make up a word whose Scrabble letter values add up to exactly 14 (no blanks!), and define it. | 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 |
| 1385 | Don't you want to see new places? | Change any place name slightly and describe the new place. | H |
| 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. | M H |
| 1376 | Get thee to a funnery | Add a character (or more) to a Shakespeare play and supply some resulting dialogue. | 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. | M |
| 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 |
| 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. | M |
| 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"). | 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 |
| 1340 | Not-ables -- slightly alter a famous name | Slightly alter the name (make sure the original is obvious) of a famous personage -- past or present, real or fictional -- and describe the resulting nonpersonage, or offer a quote from that person, or both. | H |
| 1339 | Songs for a modern error | Write humorous lyrics about some modern woe, set to a familiar tune. | T |
| 1338 | Picture This -- cartoon captions | Supply a caption for one or more of the provided cartoons. | T |
| 1336 | Two ways about it | What's something (printable) you could say in two -- or more -- of the provided situations. | 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. | M |
| 1326 | Foaling around | Breed" any two names from the provided list of 100 horses and name the foal to reflect both names. | 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. | T |
| 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. | M |
| 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 |
| 1314 | Bill Us Now -- 'joint legislation' | Combine two or more names from the provided list of the new members of Congress to “co-sponsor” a bill based on their combined last names, and state its purpose | M |
| 1312 | Neologisms in TOUR de Fours XV | Coin a word or multi-word term that contains the letter block T-O-U-R and describe it. The letters may be in any order. | H |
| 1310 | The Year in Redo, Part 2 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1282 through Week 1306. | 4 |
| 1309 | The Year in Redo, Part 1 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1255 through Week 1281. | H |
| 1297 | A different type o' headline contest | Change a letter in an article or ad in the Post or another publication dated Sept. 13-24 by adding or subtracting one letter; substituting a letter; transposing two letters; or changing spacing or punctuation; and then add a "bank head. | L |
| 1290 | Bobbing for Witte words | Come up with both an object/situation and a neologism for it. | L |
| 1285 | That is so wrong! | Supply a trivia question along with both the correct answer and a cleverly "wrong" guess. | H |
| 1275 | That is the question | Choose a line from Shakespeare (or a significant part of a line) and pair it with a question that the line could humorously answer. | M H |
| 1258 | The year in redo, Part 2 | Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1230 through Week 1254. | W |
| 1257 | The year in redo, Part 1 | Enter (or re-enter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1203 through Week 1229, except for Weeks 1205 and 1206. | 2 |
| 1253 | Fashion x fiction: More fake trivia | Tell us some totally bogus trivia about clothing or fashion. | 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 |
| 1241 | 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 |
| 1237 | Our alliteracy campaign | Rewrite an existing headline from any publication, print or online — about something in the news from July 20 to 31, by using alliteration. | M |
| 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 |
| 1231 | TankaWanka 3: Haiku Plus Tu | 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 at least two of the lines must rhyme. | M |
| 1227 | Celebrate ortho-diversity! | Name and describe a new life form -- and no letter in the term may be used twice. | H |
| 1226 | Colt following: The 'grandfoals' | Breed" any two of the 61 foal names that got ink this week, and name the offspring to reflect both parents names. | H |
| 1218 | Mess with our -- or anyone else's -- heads | Reinterpret (or comment wryly on) a headline appearing in the Post (print or online or another publication dated March 9-20) by writing a bankhead, or subtitle. | L H |
| 1217 | Mergers you wrote: Combine two businesses with puns | Give a clever name for a combination of two or more businesses. | 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. | H |
| 1214 | The alternaugural address | Write a humorous passage — a “quote,” an observation, a joke, a dialogue, a poem, anything — using only words that appear in Trump’s inaugural address. | H |
| 1212 | The Tile Invitational IV | Give us a five-, six- or seven-letter word (or two words) by scrambling the letters of any of the provided sets and define it. | W |
| 1206 | Do-over the do-over -- enter any of the year's contests | Enter (or re-enter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1149 to 1202, except for Week 1152, last year's do-over. | H H H |
| 1205 | Could we just have a do-over? Yes, we could. | Enter (or re-enter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1149 to 1201, except for Week 1152, last year's do-over. | W H H H |
| 1200 | The definitive dozen | Supply a word, name or multi-word term along with a wry definition or description; together, the term and description must total exactly 12 words. | H |
| 1198 | Give it to us straight | Take any sentence from an article or ad in any publication dated Oct. 20 to Oct. 31 — or from an online article dated within that period — and translate it into “plain English". | 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. | M |
| 1195 | Don't change a letter! | Alter a movie title only by changing word spacing, changing capitalization, and adding or deleting punctuation marks, accents, etc., then describe the result. | H |
| 1192 | Ask Backwards | The 15 provided phrases above are the answers. You provide the questions to as many as you’d like (up to 25 entries total). | 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 |
| 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". | M |
| 1166 | Questionable journalism | Take a sentence (or most of a sentence) that appears in text (not a headline) in The Washington Post or on washingtonpost.com dated March 10-21 and make up a question that the sentence could answer | H |
| 1162 | An 8-year Re-Onion | Write a fictional Onion-type headline. | M |
| 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 |
| 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). | T |
| 1129 | Right in the pampootie | Write a humorous short poem (eight lines or fewer) incorporating one of the 50 provided words. | M |
| 1126 | Picture this | Provide a humorous caption for any of the cartoons provided. | 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 |
| 1117 | You got another sing coming | Write a song about a topic or person lately in the news, set to a familiar tune. | M |
| 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 |
| 1097 | Futz your sign | Select a line from one of the horoscopes appearing anytime from Nov. 6 through Nov. 17 in the Washington Post's daily Style or on washingtonpost.com and "clarify" it with a translation or extra "information". | 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 |
| 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 |
| 1081 | It's the stupidity, stupid | Write us stupid questions that will make us laugh. | H |
| 1056 | Weather or nuts | Coin a term relating to the weather, climate, etc. -- either literal or figurative -- and define it. | M |
| 1050 | Just redo it | Enter any Style Invitational contest from Week 1000 through Week 1046. | H |
| 1047 | Bank shots | Quote a headline appearing in The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com or another publication, print or online, dated Nov. 14 to Nov. 25, and supply a humorous "bank" headline that either misinterprets it or comments wryly on it. | M |
| 1042 | Tour de Fours X: Go SANE | Create a new word or two-word term containing the letter block S-A-N-E -- in any order, but consecutively, and define it. | 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 |
| 1036 | Just for liffs | Use a real place name, from anywhere in the world, as a new term. | H H |
| 1028 | Joint Legislation | Combine the names of two or more of the First Congress senators and/or representatives to create "joint legislation". | H |
| 1018 | Reologisms | Write a clever, funny definition for any of the Loser-concocted neologisms from Week 1014 as well as from Week 1000 that deserve better definitions than their creators offered at the time. | H |
| 1015 | Faux re mi | Give us some humorously false trivia about music or musicians. | H |
| 1008 | Switched reels | Re-arrange all the words in the title of a movie, and describe the resulting work. | H |
| 972 | Trends and neighbors | Choose any two items on the provided list and explain how they are alike or different. | H |
| 461 | Punch Us Again | Take any comic from the daily Washington Post during the next week and make it better by changing the contents of the final word balloon. | H |
| 360 | No Competition | Create a list of 25 names, each linked in some way to the name before, and you must begin and end with Mary Ann Madden. | H |