Style Invitational Week 1219: Cast your Bred here — a new 4-line-poem
contest


Plus the winning ‘so X that Y’ jokes, and introducing our new Loser Mug




Your mug here? It’s our fourth and latest Loser Mug design for third-
and fourth-place finishers, designed once again by Bob Staake. The
slogan “You Gotta Play to Lose” is by Loser Roy Ashley. (Design and
photo illustration by Bob Staake/for The Washington Post )
By Pat Myers By Pat Myers

Entertainment
March 16 at 11:01 AM



(Click here to skip down <#report> to the inking “he’s so X that Y” jokes)


*my name is Cow,*
*and wen its nite,*
*or wen the moon*
*is shiyning brite,*
*and all the men*
*haf gon to bed — *
*i stay up late.*
*i lik the bred. *
— Sam Garland, a.k.a. Poem for Your Sprog


The sometimes mystifying social community Reddit has been enchanted
hundreds of times over by Sam Garland, a postdoctoral student who took
to posting comments on a wide variety of others’ Reddit posts — in the
form of rhyming poems. Last October someone posted an amusing anecdote
about a cow

that had made her way into the kitchen of a re-created French fortress
and started licking all the loaves of bread — and Sprog responded with
the faux-Chaucerian doggerel above.

Almost instantly, according to the website Know Your Meme,
“i lik the bred” sparked
a new genre, with parodies and similar verses popping up all over Reddit
and Tumblr blogs, in topics ranging from kittens to Tudor history. So
let’s Invitize it: *Write a Lik the Bred verse about someone in the news
lately.* For our own purposes, here are the parameters:

Flip the switch on the bottom of the 2-inch-long Kreep-E and it whirs
and sort of scurries around. That's it. What, you expected a silver medal?

● *It begins with “My name is . . . ”* or some other first-person
introduction.

● *It ends with “I [verb] the [noun].”* You may substitute “we” for “I,”
and “a” or “my” for “the,” etc.

● *It consists of four rhyming lines,* A-A-B-B (Sprog breaks them into
eight, but we will probably use a four-line format to save space).
Thirty-two syllables total.

● *The meter is strongly iambic:* ba-DUMP ba-DUMP ba-DUMP ba-DUMP. (My
NAME is COW . . . )

● *The spelling /may/ be faux Middle English *but could also be modern;
the Empress hopes to run both types. Either way, the verse shouldn’t be
a slog to read.

*Submit entries at this website: * *bit.ly/enter-invite-1219
* (all lowercase).

*Winner gets the Inkin’ Memorial
,*
the Lincoln statue bobblehead that is the official Style Invitational
trophy. Second place receives a brand-new *Kreep-E,

*a two-inch-long, bright green electronic insectoid that scurries around
with “realistic bug movement.”
Well, it at least vibrates
a lot. Donated by Loser Nan Reiner, who no doubt, like the Kreep-E,
“self-corrects when flipped.”

*Other runners-up *win the new mug announced today or our Grossery
Bag, “I Got a B in Punmanship.” Honorable
mentions get one of our new lusted-after Loser magnets, “No Childishness
Left Behind”
or
“Magnum Dopus.”

First Offenders receive only a smelly tree-shaped air “freshener”
(FirStink

for their first ink). Deadline is Monday night, March 27; results
published April 16 (online April 13). See general contest rules and
guidelines at wapo.st/InvRules . The headline
for this week’s results is by Jesse Frankovich; the honorable-mentions
subhead is by Roger Dalrymple. Join the lively Style Invitational
Devotees group on Facebook at /on.fb.me/invdev
./ “Like” Style Invitational Ink of the Day on
Facebook at /bit.ly/inkofday; / follow @StyleInvite
on Twitter.

*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 from The Style Invitational four weeks ago . . .

*AND ‘SO’ WIT WAS WRITTEN: REPORT FROM WEEK 1215*
In *Week 1215 *the Empress sought one-liners
of the form “X is so Y that . . .”

Once again, she didn’t tell the Loser
Community to sling gibes at our president, but once again, those are
what mostly were slung, big league. Perhaps a dozen entries offered that
Trump is so self-centered that he thought the song was about him.

4th place

*The Trump White House is so brazen,* it’s offering foreign donors a
night in the Putin Bedroom. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

3rd place

*My friend from Weight Watchers is so competitive *that she always
halves what I’m halving. (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

2nd place

and the toilet-shaped mug
:
*Donald Trump’s hands are so tiny,* the women he grabs don’t even
notice. (Brian Allgar, Paris)

And the winner of the Inkin’ Memorial:

*My chiropractor is so unscrupulous,* he charges Paul Ryan the same
price as people who have backbones. (Jeff Shirley, Richmond, Va.)

So close, yet so far: honorable mentions

*“The Bachelor” is so fixed,* it ought to be called “The Gelding.”
(Lawrence McGuire, Waldorf, Md.)

*Kellyanne Conway’s been so quiet lately* that Richard Simmons is asking
what’s happened to her
.
(Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)

*President Trump’s skin tone is so unusual, *nothing rhymes with it.
(Jesse Frankovich, Lansing, Mich.)

*John McCain is such a bold, independent-thinking maverick,* he
complains about Trump’s nominees before voting for them. (Duncan Stevens)

*Political correctness has gotten so out of control* that the last time
I ordered French toast at a diner, a millennial at the next table jumped
up and started screaming, “Cultural appropriation! Cultural
appropriation!” (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

*Donald Trump is so great.
*#totallyriggedStyleInvitationalclaimsIbroketherules
#aftereverythingIvedoneforthePost #suchanastyempress (Melissa Balmain,
Rochester, N.Y.)

*The crowd was so huge at Trump’s inauguration* that the Park Police
considered setting up a second Porta-John. (Hildy Zampella, Falls
Church, Va.)

*Kim Jong Un is so paranoid *that his food taster has a food taster.
(John O’Byrne, Dublin)

*America’s lawyers have been getting so much love* for their help
fighting the immigration ban, cabbies are giving them free rides to
chase ambulances. (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

*Mitch McConnell is such a negative guy* that his bobblehead shakes its
head no. (Pie Snelson, Silver Spring, Md.)

*The insult was so trivial *that even @realDonaldTrump wouldn’t respond
to it. (Jeff Hazle, San Antonio)

*The movie was so awful* that everyone in the theater stopped texting to
watch in disbelief. (Hildy Zampella)

*Trump is so out of shape,* he gets tired in conversations with foreign
officials just pressing their buttons. (Dan Helming, Maplewood, N.J.)

*Donald Trump is so reckless* he asked Kim Jong Un to pick him up at the
airport. (David Kleinbard, Mamaroneck, N.Y.)

*Canadians are so angry about Trump’s travel ban,* they are asking
politely that it be repealed. (Mark Raffman)

*Donald Trump is such an inept fascist,* he can’t even make Metro run on
time. (Mark Raffman)

*The Old Woman in the Shoe had so many kids,* she had to learn to
multi-tsk. (Chris Doyle)

*President Trump is so self-absorbed,* he thinks the word “meme” has two
syllables. (Jesse Frankovich)

*Chuck Norris is so tough, *his shower floor is strewn with Legos.
(Chris Doyle)

*The Democrats have been so shut out of the governing process, *they’re
writing letters to their congressmen. (Dan Helming)

*The suspect’s rap sheet was so long *that the police had to print it on
the back of a CVS receipt. (Hildy Zampella)

*Kids are so ungenerous these days *that mine always want me to pay them
back every time I borrow a couple hundred dollars for beer and
cigarettes. (Ivars Kuskevics, Takoma Park, Md.)

*Facebook is so polluted with political vitriol* that my friends who
voted for Trump and RUINED OUR COUNTRY (HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY NOW) don’t
even pay attention to my posts anymore. (Mark Raffman)

*Donald Trump’s hands are so large* that his skin has to stretch really
thin to cover them. (Steve Glomb, Alexandria, Va.)

*Betty White is so old* that when she says she saw “Hamilton,” she saw
Hamilton. (Ira Allen, Bethesda, Md.)

*The night was so dark,* democracy died
.
(Jeff Hazle)



*Your Mama’s been used so much* that even this contest doesn’t want to
touch her. (Kevin Dopart, Washington)

*Keira Knightley is so thin*, she could pass as Monday’s Washington
Post. (Kevin Dopart)

*The Style Invitational’s readership is comprised of people so nitpicky*
that they’ve already mentally corrected the first part of this sentence
to “composed of.” (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)

/And Last: / *The Empress is so objective *that she reads entries with a
blindfold on. (Kel Nagel, Salisbury, Md.)

*Still running — deadline Monday night, March 20: our perennial Mess
With Our Heads contest to reinterpret headlines. Seebit.ly/invite-1218
. *