Style Invitational Week 1309: The Year in Redo, Part 1


Enter any (or all) of 25 Invite contests from the past year. Plus
top Googlenopes and -yups.


(Bob Staake for The Washington Post)
By Pat Myers

Pat Myers


Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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December 6

(Click here to skip down <#report> to the winning Googlenopes and
Googleyups)

/Winner of Week 1268
,
bogus trivia about the media:/
*Jeff Bezos meant to buy only a single issue of The Washington Post, but
he didn’t have any small bills on him at the time.* (Robert Schechter)

/Winner of Week 1255,

neologisms including the letter block S-A-N-T in any order:/
*Am-Nasty International: The president’s new name for the State *
*Department.* (Ann Martin)

/Winner of Week 1279,
“real”
directions:/
*How to meditate: *
*1. Close your eyes and relax.*
*2. You’re not doing it right.* (Mark Raffman)

Did you ever read the results of a Style Invitational contest and go,
“Ohhhh — /now/ I see what they wanted”? (“They” being that one woman
who’s ever going to see your entry unless it gets ink.) This week and
next, the Empress gives you another shot with our annual retrospective
contest. This week we’ll cover 25 Invite contests from last November
through May, encompassing such perennials as obit poems,

foal “breeding”

and various neologism contests, plus some one-offs like Yelp reviews for
odd places , orgood-natured modern curses.


*Enter (or reenter) any Style Invitational contest from Week 1255
through Week 1281,* except for Weeks 1257 and 1258, last year’s
do-overs, and Week 1260, the 2018 “Year in Preview” (we’ll preview 2019
later). You may enter multiple contests as long as you don’t submit more
than 25 entries in all. For contests asking you to use that week’s
paper, use papers and online articles dated Dec. 6-17. For the obit
poems, Week 1261, continue to write about people who died in 2017. You
may resubmit non-inking entries from earlier contests.

How on earth are you going to find these old contests? Piece of cake,
even if you don’t subscribe to this paper (though you should,
you know).
Go to the Loser Community’s own website, *nrars.org, *
click on “Master Contest List,” and scroll way down
to Week 1255 and below. Read the thumbnail contest descriptions, then
click on the “E” icon for the online version of the week’s contest, or
the “WP” for the print version. And check the results of that week’s
contest (usually four weeks down the chart) to make sure your idea
didn’t already get ink. Please give the week number plus a brief ID of
the contest your entry is for (e.g., “Week 1291, bad product
spokespeople”). See this week’s Style Conversational column at
*wapo.st/conv1309 * for other ways (maybe
better ones for you) to see all the contests.

Submit entries at *wapo.st/enter-invite-1309
* (all lowercase) — NOT the entry
forms for those old contests.

Winner gets the *Lose Cannon,

* our Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives one of our
favorite prizes ever: It was picked up in Ukraine, from a Kiev street
vendor, by Invite Fan but Not a Loser Rex Moser. Though Rex can’t read
Russian or Ukrainian, he didn’t have any trouble recognizing the face of
Vladi­mir *Putin in full color on a roll of toilet paper. * The
accompanying wording turns out to translate to “Putin is a [ahem]-head”
— a catcall that became popular among soccer fans during the annexation
of 2014, and is also widespread (presumably more discreetly) in Russia.

*Other runners-up *win our “You Gotta Play to Lose”
Loser
Mug or our “Whole Fools”

Grossery Bag. Honorable mentions get one of our lusted-after Loser
magnets, “We’ve Seen Better”
or
“IDiot Card.”

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

for their first ink). *Deadline is Monday night, Dec. 17; *results
published Jan. 6 (online Thursday, Jan. 3). See general contest rules
and guidelines at wapo.st/InvRules . The
headline “No-Hit Wonders” was suggested by both Jeff Contompasis and
Jesse Frankovich; Chris Doyle and Jesse both suggested this week’s
honorable-mentions subhead. Join the Style Invitational Devotees on
Facebook at on.fb.me/invdev . “Like” Style
Invitational Ink of the Day on Facebook at bit.ly/inkofday
; follow @StyleInvite on Twitter.

And from The Style Invitational four weeks ago . . .

*NO-HIT WONDERS: WINNING GOOGLENOPES (AND ’YUPS) FROM WEEK 1305*

In*Week 1305* the Empress asked you to find
some interesting *Googlenopes* — phrases that don’t generate any Google
hits, or “ghits,” as they’re now sometimes called. She also invited
interesting *Googleyups, * phrases that are surprisingly out there
already, as well as a set of Nopes and Yups provided together for irony.
Some of the Googleyups below are *Googlewhacks* — just one hit. (The
ones below worked at press time, at least for the E.)

4th place:

Googleyup: *“Cows are smarter than you think*” (a Googlewhack)
Googleyup: *“Pigs are smarter than you think” *
Googlenope: *“Betsy DeVos is smarter than you think” *
(Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)


Direct from Kiev, this week's 2nd prize. (The Russian obscenity is
hidden in the photo; this much just says "la la la.”)
3rd place:

Googleyup: *“Does your virginity grow back?”* (101 results) (Mike Burch,
Nashville)

2nd place

and the winner of the risque‘Meat Romney’ barbecue apron
:
Googlewhack: *“Sarah Huckabee Sanders always tells the truth.”* (The
whole sentence: *“Sarah Huckabee Sanders always tells the truth about
absolutely nothing.”*) (Lorna Jerome, Waldorf, Md., who will have the
option to choose a less crude prize, like plastic dog poop)

And the winner of the Lose Cannon:

Googlenope: *"No one invites me to LinkedIn."* (Eric Nelkin, Silver
Spring, Md.)

'Nopes were dashed: Honorable mentions

Googleyup:*“I miss Karl Rove”* (and indeed, a few of the 67 hits were
sincere — but others included *“I miss Karl Rove and Dick Cheney like a
necromancer misses the Black Plague”*) (Josh Feldblyum, Philadelphia)

Googlenope:*“Chasidic twerking videos”* (Google asked helpfully, *“Did
you mean: ‘Hasidic twerking videos’?”* Fortunately, that was also a
Googlenope.) (Daphne Steinberg, Alexandria, Va.)

Googleyup: *“Please pull my fingernails out”*
Googleyup: *“Please kick me in the shins”*
Googleyup: *“Please scream in my ear”*
Googlenope: *“Please bring me airline food”*
(Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

Googlewhack: *“Antioxidant properties of donuts” * (Mike Gips, Bethesda,
Md.) (It’s also a Googlenope with the spelling “doughnuts”)

Googleyup:*“Facebook makes me stupid”*
Googlenope:*“Facebook makes me smart” *
(Kevin Dopart, Washington)

Googleyup: *“Adam Sandler’s oeuvre”* (although at least one refers to
*“the all-out idiocy of Adam Sandler’s oeuvre”*) (Mike Gips)

Googlenope: *“That controversial Hallmark Christmas movie”* (Larry
McClemons, Annandale, Va.)

Googlenope: *“Your Mama is so monogamous”* (Eric Nelkin)

Googlenope: *“The comments section really advances the discussion”*
(Mike Gips)

Googleyup: *“Do vegetarians eat carnivorous plants?”*
Googlenope: *“Do carnivorous plants eat vegetarians?”* (Mark Raffman)

Googlenope: *“How to unblock Rachel from Card Services”* (Bill Dorner,
Indianapolis)

Googleyup: *“Louis Armstrong sucked”*
Googleyup: *“Billie Holiday sucked”*
Googleyup:*“Frank Sinatra sucked” *
Googleyup:*“Ray Charles sucked”*
Googlenope: *“Ella Fitzgerald sucked”*
(Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)

Googlewhack:*“Sexy Ruth Bader Ginsburg Halloween costume” *(referring to
a lame gag in a flop movie of 2012) (Bill Dorner)

Googlenope: *“Trendy new German restaurant”* (Jonathan Jensen)

Googleyup: *“What wine pairs well with dog?”*
Googlenope: *“What wine pairs well with porcupine?” *
(Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

Googleyup: *“Our calm four-year-old” * — but they all refer to dogs
(Mark Richardson, Takoma Park, Md.)

Googlewhack:*“Cannot wait to see Washington in the summer”* (and it
referred to Washington state) (Duncan Stevens)

Googlenope: *“Empress of the Style Invitational action figure” *
Googleyup: *“Gene Weingarten action figure” *(Bill Dorner)

Googlenope: *“I didn’t deserve ink.”* (Andy Schotz, Hagerstown, Md.)

Googlewhack:*“Everybody loves the Empress” *(Gregory Koch, Falls Church,
Va.) (That single hit, alas, refers to Empress Elisabeth of Austria,
1837-98. Not a whole lot of love for empresses out there, we guess.)

*Still running — deadline Monday, Dec. 10: Our contest for captions for
Bob Staake cartoons. See wapo.st/invite1308. *