Style Invitational Week 1351: What concept will you be for Halloween?



Give us timely costume ideas (or actual photos). Plus ‘humortician’
and other neologisms.


(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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September 26

(Click here to skip down <#report> to this week’s winning neologisms)

*Bury yourself in a pile of raincoats and umbrellas and be an Alabama
hurricane victim. *

*Be a Trump national security adviser: Just change costumes every 10
minutes.*

*Throw a Democratic primary Halloween party: a bash jammed with so many
people, they all get half a piece of candy each and have to yell to be
heard. *

When the results of this contest run, four weeks from now, it’ll be the
weekend before Halloween. So here’s an incentive to put a Loserly spin
on the holiday: *Give us a creative, clever idea for a timely Halloween
costume (for one or more people) or an idea for a party or other
activity, *either feasible or not so much, as in the examples above
provided by Invite Obsessive Duncan Stevens along with his suggestion of
this contest. *You may even send us a photo of an actual new costume
you’ve created this year, *so the Empress will extend the usual contest
deadline by a week; you have until Oct. 14.

Submit up to 25 entries at *wapo.st/enter-invite-1351*
(no capitals in the Web address). If
you have more than one photo to submit, please use a separate entry form
for each photo.

Winner gets the *Lose Cannon,

* our Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives a *belly pack
that looks like a white man’s hairy belly, *modeled below by Loser Drew
Bennett, who donated it. (The Empress has no idea whether it looks like
Drew’s actual bodily gut, and we’ll leave it that way.) It’s actually a
high-quality bag, with durable straps and zippers and such. Wearing it
as a fanny pack might be even more interesting.

*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, “Too-Weak Notice”

or “Certificate of (de) Merit.”

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

for their first ink). *Deadline is Monday, Oct. 14;* results published
Oct. 27 in print, Oct. 24 online. See general contest rules and
guidelines at wapo.st/InvRules . The headline
“Redo Unto Others” is by Jon Gearhart; Chris Doyle wrote the
honorable-mentions subhead. 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;
/ 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/conv1351.


And from The Style Invitational four weeks ago . . .


Redo unto others: The 'reologisms' of Week 1347

In*Week 1347, *the Empress rounded up a list
of zingy neologisms and name-puns that had been entered in earlier
contests but needed better descriptions — and asked the whole Loser
Community to help. It delivered, as you’ll see below. Too many people to
credit suggested that *Marco Pollo * *met General Tso while crossing the
Silk Road* and that *Richard Outhouse Nixon really needed plumbers.*


4th place:

*Mediochre: *The color of the fifth-place ribbon./(David Peckarsky,
Tucson) /


Loser Drew Bennett modestly hides his rock-hard abs behind this week's
prize bag.


3rd place:

A. *The Right Brothers.*
Q. Who invented the mansplane? /(Jesse Rifkin, Arlington, Va.) /


2nd place

/and the Mr. Turdy
modeling
clay kit:/
*Lady Maga: *The new name that Ken Cuccinelli is planning for the Statue
of Liberty. /(Steve Smith, Potomac, Md.)/


And the winner of the Lose Cannon:


Get flabby abs instantly with NO exercise! This week's 2nd prize. (Rayki)

*Captain Rehab:* His saga opens: "Call me Ishmael."
"Hiiii, Ishmael."/(Bob Kruger, Rockville, Md.) /


Def warmed over: Honorable mentions

*Genghis Cohen:* The most fearsome ruler ever to live, except for his
mother./(Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.) /

*Attila the Hon:* History’s least menacing Baltimorean, until the 2019
Orioles came along./(Jeff Hazle, San Antonio) /

*Bill DeBlasé:* Meh-yor of New York City./(Eric Nelkin, Silver Spring,
Md.) /

After you’ve navigated three phone menus to get a live person, only to
be told to call back during normal business hours, you might well become
a*cusstomer.* /(Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.) /

*Exersighs:* What you let out when touching your toes becomes touching
your knees./(Mark Raffman) /

*Exersighs:* A delicate term for farting during a gym workout, as in
“Pardon my exersighs.” /(Harold Mantle, Walnut Creek, Calif.) /

A. *F*** Scott Fitzgerald.
*Q. Who wrote “Tinder Is the Night?”/(Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.) /

A. *Gen. William Tecumseh Charmin*.
Q. Who captured Atlanta but lost the Battle of Bull Runs? /(Frank Mann,
Washington) /

A. *Gen. William Tecumseh Charmin.*
Q: Who was number two in his class at West Point?/(William Kennard,
Arlington, Va.)/

*Gen. William Tecumseh Charmin:* Famous for tracking down and taking
revenge on Montezuma. /(Robyn Carlson, Keyser, W.Va.)/

*Gen. William Tecumseh Charmin: *By the time he reached Georgia, he was
on a roll! /(Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.) /

*Genghis Cohen:*“One of my 16 million descendants

would be just perfect for your granddaughter!” /(Jesse Rifkin) /
A. *Horatio Algebra.*
Q. Who wrote his rags-to-riches stories according to this formula: “X <
Y; X impresses Y; Y rewards X; X = Y”? (/Lawrence McGuire, Waldorf, Md.) /

How deadpan are his jokes? They’re so deadpan we call him the
*humortician.// * /(David Peckarsky) /

*Humortician:* That oh-so-helpful comedy expert who analyzes why your
joke wasn’t funny./(Neal Starkman, Seattle; Jeff Contompasis) /

*Humortician:* Someone who can turn a FUNERAL into REAL FUN. /(Jesse
Frankovich, Grand Ledge, Mich.)/

*Ikea Turner: *This pop singer’s birth name was Allen Wrench. /(Danielle
Nowlin, Fairfax Station, Va.) /

*IMHOtep:* “With all due respect, mighty Pharaoh, I think the wide part
of the pyramid should go at the bottom.”/(Jesse Frankovich) /

*Joan of Arkansas* was Bill Clinton’s earliest known girlfriend, until
she burned his steak./(Alan Duxbury, Carlisle, Pa.) /

A. *John F. Kidney.*
Q. Who said, “’Ich bin ein Uriner!” /(Jeff Shirley, Richmond, Va.) /

A.*Kevin Costco.
*Q*. *Who said, “If you build it, they will come and purchase a
ginormous jar of olives?”/(Bill Dorner, Indianapolis) /

*Kindergartenerd:* “Spell ‘cat’? Would you give me the etymology,
please?”/(Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)/

If you carry your crayons in a pocket protector, you might be a
*kindergartenerd.* /(Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.; Jesse Frankovich) /

*Kindergartenerd:* A first-year Cub Scout who already has his eyes on
becoming a Dweebelo
./(Chris Doyle,
Denton, Tex.) /

*Kindergartenerd:* A kid who writes out the chord progressions of “Baby
Shark.” /(Jesse Frankovich)/

A. *Lady Maga.*
Q. Who sings “Suborn This Way?” /(Jeff Contompasis) /

*Lewdicrous:* How to describe crotchless bike shorts. /(David Kleinbard,
Mamaroneck, N.Y.)/

*Marco Pollo:* A game in which two blindfolded players swim toward each
other until one swerves. /(Stephen Dudzik, Olney, Md.) /

A. *Marco Pollo.*
Q. What do you call a Florida senator who is afraid to debate? /(Kevin
Dopart, Washington) /

*Mediochre:* A color slightly more intense than mehcru, but not as vivid
as insipia. /(Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)/

*Politicalisthenics:* Lots of pushing and pulling that ends with dips
doing squat. /(Jesse Frankovich) /

*Quizine: *“I see that you have taken a bite! How IS everything? … Yes,
of course you can finish chewing … So, is everything AMAZING?”
/(Danielle Nowlin) /

A. *Richard Outhouse Nixon.*
Q. Who stunned the world by meeting with Mao Tse-Dung?/(Beryl Benderly,
Washington) /

*Richard Outhouse Nixon:* Even /his/ presidency smelled better than
Donald “John” Trump’s./(Mark Raffman) /

*Rupert Nerdoch: *Guy who is unlikely to land a 21st-century fox.
/(Danielle Nowlin) /

*Samuel Morose*: “Dots and dashes are fine, but what a disappointment
that I never found a way to transmit a smiley face.” /(Jonathan Jensen,
Baltimore) /

*Samuel Morose:* Whose favorite song was taps?/(Kevin Dopart) /

*The Hardly Boys: *A pair of amateur sleuths who’ve been solving crimes
since 1927. (/Jonathan Jensen) /

A. *The Hardly Boys.*
Q. Who were the main characters in “The Mystery of the Eunuchs’
Tunics?”/(Harold Mantle) /

A. *Thomas Uvula Edison. *
Q. Who invented, you know, that … thingy? (/Hildy Zampella, Alexandria,
Va.) /

*Thomas Uvula Edison*: The Gizzard of Menlo Park. /(Bob Kruger) /

*Still running — deadline Monday night: Our contest for poems based on
new dictionary words. See wapo.st/invite1350. *

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