Week 762: Look This Up in Your Funk & Wagnalls


Pomade-Pop: A new soda that hasn't cut much into Coca-Cola's market share.

Microhabitat-microwave: A dorm room appliance on the last day of spring break.

Perforated-perimeter: The end of American civilization, according to Lou Dobbs.

H ere's a game we've played in the past with the alphabetical headings in the phone book: This time we turn to what may be another imminently obsolete reference volume. This week: Supply the pair of terms listed at the top of a page of any print dictionary to indicate the first and last listings on the page, and define that hyphenated term. You may reverse the order of the terms. Please cite the dictionary you're using; the examples above are from Webster's New World, second and fourth editions. Note: After the embarrassment of riches known as 4,000-plus horse-name entries for Week 759, the Empress has decided she's embarrassed enough. This week, please limit yourself to your 20 best entries.

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives a truly marvelous photo book, "Toilets of the World," a 255-page color travelogue of facilities high-tech and very low, the starkly practical and the opulently whimsical, such as a Tokyo restaurant's red human-mouth-shaped urinal that swings from side to side while music blares, forcing the hapless urinator to sway in time with the music lest he miss the, well, mouth. Try that after a few glasses of sake. Donated by Loser Kevin Dopart.

Other runners-up win their choice of a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt or yearned-for Loser Mug. Honorable Mentions get one of the lusted-after Style Invitational Magnets. One prize per entrant per week. Send your entries by e-mail to losers@washpost.com or by fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, May 5. Put "Week 762" in the subject line of your e-mail, or it risks being ignored as spam. Include your name, postal address and phone number with your entry. Contests are judged on the basis of humor and originality. All entries become the property of The Washington Post. Entries may be edited for taste or content. Results will be published May 24. No purchase required for entry. Employees of The Washington Post, and their immediate relatives, are not eligible for prizes. Pseudonymous entries will be disqualified. The revised title for next week's results is by Michael Baker of Elkridge. This week's Honorable Mentions name was submitted by both Tom Witte and Michael Turniansky. We belatedly mention that the Week 758 contest was suggested independently by Russell Beland and Anne Paris.

Report From Week 758, in which we invited readers to regroup words (or words that are embedded in other words) appearing in the Gettysburg Address into their own passages:

The Empress received impassioned protests from two readers who were appalled that we would make light of a sacred text (one demanded that we cancel the contest). The premise of this exercise was that, in this digital age, the noblest sentiments risk being edited into "quotes" ranging from the malicious to the just plain silly. Well, we can at least assure you that we have malice toward none. As for the latter quality, those letter-writers are exhorted -- please! -- to stop reading right now.

4. What is this "we the people"? They say "we shall over-come" but what can they do? Ha. It is "we the government," we who are in power. The people endure what we do. Sure, they might go to war and even act nobly. But what is so great in that? In the end, this is what I say: So? Gag on this. Eat me. -- R.C., Undisclosed Location (Kevin Dopart, Washington)

3. "O God! O! O! O! O God! O God! O! O! O!"

"I'll have what she did." -- Harry & Sally Burns, New York (Randy Lee, Burke)

2. the winner of the alligator-head coin bank:

He: Can we go?

She: Hon? Do I have a fat end now?

He: No.

She: Sure?

He: Sure.

She: It is larger. It is altogether not little. It is as large as a van.

He: No, it is so little.

She: It is AS LARGE AS THE EARTH!

He: Forget it.

She: Ew!

He: Now what?

She: Now this bra is not fitting.

He: What a struggle! Finished now?

She: I have aged. Will men gag and not proposition me?

He: I will proposition. I will remember the lace bra.

She: That will work.

He: Can we go now? (Anne Paris, Arlington)
And the Winner of the Inker

Al, Bert, Ed, Vance and Nat all remember their lives long ago.

Al: We did rough work and did not rest. Now we do a task and get all ill.

Bert: We ate and ate, and did not get full. Now we eat even a little ort and get fat.

Ed: Or use the can to get a little rest and go poo -- never a struggle! Now we are in-continent.

Vance: Our lives are all but over. We should ease into our final years.

Nat: No! We are not finished! We all have a little power in the hose, an ember in the member. It is not the end for us. Come on -- live large! (Barry Koch, Catlett, Va.)
Little Noted Nor Long Remembered: Honorable Mentions

Did Ono and her tin ear end the great Four? And thus The Who remaining, heir to the great, unfinished task? No -- it led to freedom, which led to the new. In a sense, she gave us R.E.M. So get over it, people. (Russ Taylor, Vienna)

It is fitting and proper that people ask whether I will govern as nobly as the men who have come before me. And to these people I say: "By God, I shall be on the take and be living large as I can for as long as I can. Ha-ha! Is this a great nation, or what?" (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.)

What did the OB say to the father?

Heir, heir! (Sue Lin Chong, Baltimore)

Hey, Ma . . . So, Father and I had a little struggle, and, er, he is rather dead, we might say. So . . . we ought to get together, no? I am free at seven. -- Oedipus (Jeff Brechlin, Eagan, Minn.)

He gave me a proposition and a large note.

I gave devotion.

It is work, even for a dedicated ho.

But I shall never forget His Honor (or what might remain of it). -- Ashley D., New York (Jay Shuck, Minneapolis)

Here is an aged gag: Ye ma-ma so fat, she can use rope for her bra lace! (Kevin Dopart)

"O no! THIS is the proper position? Forget it! I'll not endure it!

OW! OW! OW! OW!"

I struggled and gave birth.

Fie on men, who can never conceive. (Beverley Sharp, Washington)

A member of the government who shall proposition men, and score in a rest place, might have his work finished in the end. (Larry Yungk, Arlington)

Yea, her ma is sure large. Her end is equal to that of four people. (Susan Thompson, Cary, N.C.)

Seven years ago, we conceived a final resting place for civil liberty. The world will little note, nor long remember, the proposition that all men are created equal. We are now dedicated to the unfinished work remaining before us -- that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall perish from this earth. (Richard Arnold, Rockville)

Not long ago, the people of this nation gave me the honor of a position in government. It is rough that the people remember me now for an act that might cause the nation to gag and say "ew." In an honored work-place. On the rug. Hey, I might get to score a-new in that place, if she can endure in the field. -- W. J. Clinton, New York (Anne Paris)

In under a year, our nation will be led by an ill, aged POW (come on, he can not even remember who is who in the world); or her, from NY (who ought to use a little lace on her bra); or that B.O. bro (now, what did he ever do?), who is so new that he might forget to end the war. Hey people, this is it. We get the government we should have, not what we long to have. But for sure, it will not be as poor and altogether low as it is now. (Kevin Dopart)

Next Week: What Kind of Foal Am I, or The Horse You Wrote In On