Week 10: A Week That Will Live in Euphemy


PLANE CRASH = UNSCHEDULED ARRIVAL

THROWING UP = A RETRO DINING EXPERIENCE

LIAR = TRUTH ECONOMIST

ACNE = FACIAL ACCESSORIES

MURDERER = AFTERLIFE FACILITATOR

This week's contest: Euphemisms. We came up with this concept after receiving a brochure from a school for "persons with multiple exceptionalities." Eventually we figured out this meant "lunatics." And so we got to thinking about how euphemisms are cynical assaults on the truth, and must be ridiculed to oblivion. So: Write us a funny one.

First-prize winner will receive a Handsome White House Dinner Plate, which is a euphemism for a "cheap, foreign-made porcelain gewgaw featuring the nearly recognizable likenesses of American presidents," a value of maybe $ 20. Runners-up will get the coveted "Style Invitational" loser's T-shirt. As always, winners will be selected on the basis of humor and originality. Mail your entries to The Style Invitational, Week 10, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or fax them to 202-334-4312. Entries must be received by Monday, May 17. Please include your address and phone number. Winners will be announced in three weeks. No purchase necessary. Employees of The Washington Post and their immediate families are not eligible for prizes.

Report from week 7 ...in which we asked you to come up with names for new rock bands.

Your 3,200 entries were "spirited." This is a euphemism for "twisted beyond all reason." How twisted? Suffice it to say that dozens of hilarious entries had to be eliminated for reasons of taste. Now look at those that survived the taste test, and permit your imagination to boggle.

Eighth Runner-Up: Pointless Umlautzz (Ron Vlaskamp, Crofton)

Seventh Runner-Up: Armageddon Sandwich (Rob Runett and Todd Kolm, Potomac)

Sixth Runner-Up: Manson Family Values (Bradley Fisher, Rockville)

Fifth Runner-Up: The Irving R. Levine Experience (Anthony Fabic, Gaithersburg)

Fourth Runner-Up: Satan In Therapy (Catherine D. Richardson, Alexandria)

Third Runner-Up: Stroke the Fat Elvis (Douglas E. Morris, Washington)

Second Runner-Up: Meal of Poodles (Edward Giefer, Arlington)

First Runner-Up: Mohandas Hitler (Ranald Totten, Springfield)

And the Winner of the Collection of Awful Tapes:

Your Mother Was My Father (Beverley Brown, Falls Church)

Honorable mentions:

When Ruby Met Oswald (Mark Hagstrom, Leesburg)

Shemp's Swollen Prostate (Craig Garland, Oxon Hill)

Xenophobic Strangers (Stephen Dudzik, Silver Spring)

Crosseyed Cyclops; also, Spiro Agnew's Yard Sale (Geoff and Jacki Drucker, Arlington)

We Who Are Flaccid (Jeff Evans, Arlington)

Six-Word, Eight Syllable Band Name (Peter Geiger, Reston)

Picturing Your Parents Doing It (Rachel Carasso, Gaithersburg)

Ich Bin Ein Target (Ranald Totten, Springfield)

The Incontinentals (John H. Prentice, Washington)

Turn Your Head and Cough (Tony Sanders, Holly Sanders, and Page Newton, Washington)

Kevorkian Express (Melissa Fischer, Washington)

Spastic Mohels (Stephen Adise, Silver Spring)

Dead Rock Stars of the Future (Scott Kuntz, Catonsville)

And last: Give Me The Damned T-Shirt (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)

Next Week: Tom Gets His T-shirt.