Style Invitational Week 1118: Breed ’em and weep — our annual foal classic


Plus the Pollyannals: winning bad-news headlines spun to suit the
Optimist newsletter



If you bred Tradesman with Hold My Purse, you could name the foal Jenner
Bender. (Bob Staake for The Washington Post )
By Pat Myers April 2 feedback for 'Style Invitational Week 1118: Breed ’em and weep — our
annual foal classic'>

(Click here to skip down <#report> to this week’s results, for headlines
that make bad news sound good)

*Tradesman x Hold My Purse = Jenner Bender
Mubtaahij x Easy to Say = Easy for YOU to Say *

*Mr. Z x Vandalize = Cut It Out, Zorro*

*Ready Get Set x Punctuate = Ready, Get Set . . . *

Let’s sound the Loseaphone,
the official
Style Invitational bugle — it’s Post time: It’s the 21st annual running
of The Style Invitational’s horse name “breeding” contest (not counting
its spinoffs), which always draws thousands of entries in competition
for a bobblehead, a $4 mug, a flimsy bag or a paper-thin magnet that
hundreds of entrants will fail to win. On the other hand, while the
Kentucky Derby charges owners at least $50,000 to walk a colt or filly
into the starting gate, we’ll let you in for the price of a
double-spaced e-mail. *At the bottom of this page is a list of 100 of
the more than 400 racehorses nominated for this year’s Triple Crown
events; your job is to “breed” any two of them and name the “foal” to
reflect both names, as in the examples above.* No, it doesn’t matter
that almost all of the horses in the list are male; this isn’t Indiana,
for cryin’ out loud. *A name may not exceed 18 characters including
spaces, *as in the real racehorse world, but one or more of the
characters may be punctuation marks or numerals. You may run words
together to make the name fit if it’s simply hilarious, but the name
still should be easy to read. *Make sure to spell the original horse
name correctly in your entry,* or the Empress might not find it as she
clicks her search button for the progeny of each horse on the list. As
always, you may send as many as 25 entries, and they can all be on the
same e-mail; in fact, the E would like that.

Winner gets the Inkin’ Memorial
,
the Lincoln statue bobblehead that is the official Style Invitational
trophy. Second place receives a genuine owl pellet, a blob of stuff that
an owl coughed up after snarfing down a baby bird or little mouse. Pull
at it with tweezers and you can find bits of bones and feathers and
sundry other ex-animal parts. Donated by Mike Creveling.

Other runners-up win their choice of a yearned-for Loser Mug
or the ardently
desired “Whole Fools” Grossery Bag.
Honorable
mentions get a lusted-after Loser magnet designed by Bob Staake: either
“The Wit Hit the Fan”
or
“Hardly Har-Har.”
First
Offenders receive a smelly tree-shaped air “freshener” (FirStink

for their first ink). E-mail entries to /losers@washpost.com
/ or, if you were born in the 19th century,
fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, April 13; results published May
3, on Derby Weekend (online April 30). You may submit up to 25 entries
per contest. Include “Week 1118” in your e-mail subject line or it might
be ignored as spam. Include your real name, postal address and phone
number with your entry. See contest rules and guidelines at
wapo.st/InvRules . The “Pollyannals” headline
is by Tom Witte; the honorable-mentions subhead was submitted separately
by Beverley Sharp, Dave Prevar and Jeff Shirley. Join the lively Style
Invitational Devotees group on Facebook at /on.fb.me/invdev
./ “Like” the Style Invitational Ink of the Day
on Facebook at /bit.ly/inkofday. /

*The Style Conversational: *The Empress’s weekly online column
(published late Thursday afternoon) discusses each new contest and set
of results. Especially if you plan to enter, check it out at
wapo.st/styleconv
.

And the results of the Style Invitational contest announced four weeks
ago . . .

POLLYANNALS: THE SPUN NEWS OF WEEK 1114:
In Week 1114, * we asked for headlines that
put “an optimistic perspective on some otherwise not-so-promising news”
so it could fit in with the positive, inspirational articles featured in
The Post’s e-mail newsletter the Optimist.

We
welcomed headlines from the past, present or future and got all three.
Some of the entries below, especially ones about the D.C. area, contain
links to explain some of the references.

4th place:

After Monster Storms Hit Vanuatu, 32 More People Know Where Vanuatu Is
(Kathleen DeBold, Burtonsville, Md.)

3rd place:

/1793:/ How to stop head lice from spreading to the rest of the body:
Marie Antoinette learns one quick trick (Pie Snelson, Silver Spring, Md.)

2nd place and the candy-pooping leprechaun:

Adorable Hamster Survives Earthquake That Killed Thousands (Robert
Schechter, Dix Hills, N.Y.)

And the winner of the Inkin’ Memorial

Milk Cartons Are Beautified With Youthful Portraits (Mark Raffman,
Reston, Va.)

THE FLOPTIMISTS: HONORABLE MENTIONS

A New Foreign ‘Pen Pal’

for 47 Senate Republicans (Jeff Shirley, Richmond, Va.)

Rising Income Gap Reduces Number of 1-Percenters to 0.5 Percent (Mark
Raffman)

As RadioShack Goes Out of Business, Look for Deep Discounts on All Pong
Games (Roy Ashley, Washington)

American Inventiveness: Four in 10 People Find Clever Ways to Live on
Scant Resources (George-Ann Rosenberg, Washington)

Boko Haram Moves Girls Out of Poverty (Kevin Dopart, Washington)

O’Reilly, Williams Unhurt
as
Bombs Explode in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen (Robert Schechter)

D.C. Rabbi
Proves
That ‘Liberal-Arts’ Types Can Be Tech-Savvy, Too (Mark Raffman)

Record Number of Families Spotted at Disneyland

(Kevin Dopart)

Get Ready for Swimsuit Weather with Miracle Sub-Saharan Diet (Frank
Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)

Falling Tree Unites Man With Great-Grandmother He Never Knew (Jon
Gearhart, Des Moines)

Florida Bans ‘Climate Change’; Key West Now Safe From Flooding (Bird
Waring, Larchmont, N.Y.)

You might be selected to get line-by-line personalized tax advice about
your 2013 return (Pam Sweeney, Burlington, Mass.)

Town of Mariupol Hosts Russian Army Reunion (Warren Tanabe, Annapolis, Md.)

Over Past Year, Secret Service Made White House More Inviting to
Visitors
(Kevin
Dopart)

Metro Riders Celebrate Less Crowded Trains With New ‘Survival of the
Fittest’ Program (Nan Reiner, Alexandria, Va.)

Fat, Homely Northern White Rhino Soon to Cease Being an Eyesore
(Jeff
Shirley)

NSA Noted as a Leader in Internet-Based Learning
(Warren
Tanabe)

Women in Government: ‘Joe Biden Has Our Backs’
(Kevin
Dopart)

Climbers Fertilize Mount Everest
(Pam
Sweeney)

Utah Aiming Not to Use Lethal-Injection Drugs
(Kevin
Dopart)

HAPPY HEADLINES FROM THE PAST — AND FUTURE

/1865:/ ‘Our American Cousin’ Knocks ’em Dead at Ford’s (James W.
Hertsch III, Alexandria, Va., a First Offender)

/1961: /Berlin’s New Wall Offers Miles of Fresh ‘Canvas’ to Street
Artists (Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.)

1937: Sturdy N.J. Mooring Tower Withstands Blow From Dirigible (Jeff
Shirley)

/Distant past:/ Boat Family Survives 40-Day Flood by Eating Griffins,
Unicorns (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.)

/Distant (?) future: /Robotic Overlords Acquiesce to Our Demands:
Friday’s Nutro-Goo Injections Now to Be Pizza-Flavored (John Kammer,
South Riding, Va.)

*Still running — deadline Monday night, April 6: our encore song parody
contest. See bit.ly/invite1117 .*

THE HORSE NAMES TO USE FOR WEEK 1118

*First: Do the Empress a favor and . . .
*

● Don’t “breed” two names and use a third name from the list for the
“foal.” People do this every year and never get ink because it’s just
not a creative enough move. (Sorry.)

● Don’t format your list as a chart, with tabs., etc. All the formatting
disappears when the entries are combined into one big list for judging,
and sometimes the names end up all over the page. Please just use
regular text in your e-mail, with each entry on a separate line.

● It helps the Empress’s eyes a lot if your entries have space between
the lines — not tons; double-space is fine, or even 1.5 (if you write
your list in Word, and copy the list into your e-mail).

● Make sure the horses you breed are spelled just as they are in this
list, because the E will be searching on each of those names to compare
all the foals from Horse A at once, then all the foals from Horse B.
(We’ll be using the format Horse A x Horse B = Foal, as in the examples
at the top of the column.)

/These 100 3-year-old racehorses are among this year’s more than 400
Triple Crown nominees on a list published by BloodHorse.com
./

Acceptance
Action Hero
American Pharaoh
Apollo Eleven
Armored Car
Baloney Mike
Battle of Marathon
Because I’m Happy
Big Ben
Black Lab
Blame Jim
Bold Papa
Bolo
Bourbon Commander
Calculator
California Coast
Carpe Diem
Changing Direction
Classy Class
Cold Spice
Colonel Fish
Comfort
Condo Commando
Crafted
Cross the Line
Danny Boy
Daredevil
Data Driven
Defined
Dirt Monster
Dortmund
Dubai Sky
Eagle
Easy to Say
El Kabeir
Equilibrium
Escalate
Fantasy Pain
Far From Over
Far Right
Firing Line
Flashy Jewel
Frat Boy
Frosted
Gangster
Giant Story
Great Stuff
Harmonic
Help From Heaven
Hero of Humor
Hold My Purse
How You
Ideal
In the Pocket
International Star
Itsaknockout
Just Kidding
Kid Zip
Killingit
Kiss the Road
Leave the Light On
Letuspray
March
Mighty Mousse
Moon River
Mr. Jordan
Mr. Z
Mubtaahij
My Point Exactly
Nasa
No Problem
Ocho Ocho Ocho
Overcontrol
Pain and Misery
Prospect Park
Puca
Punctuate
Pure Excitement
Quality Bird
Ready Get Set
Richard the Great
Royal Squeeze
Scamp
Shaken Not Stirred
Skill Not Luck
Squeegee
Super Surfer
Take Charge Brandi
Texas Red
The Man
Tough Customer
Tradesman
Ultra Sharp
Upstart
Vandalize
Will Did It
Willing to Travel
Wisecracker
Your Thoughts
Zip N Bayou