The Invitational Week 37: Do You Have to Spell It Out for Us?
You do. Give us 'backronyms.' Plus severed-body-parts 'Muldoon' verses.
PAT MYERS AND GENE WEINGARTEN
SEP 14, 2023

Help Us Morons Misuse Earth’s Resources: Clearly what the name of this vehicle stands for, right? It’s time for another backronym contest, below

We’re Baaaaack…. The New Contest
HUMMER: Help Us Morons Misuse Earth’s Resources (Elwood Fitzner)

METRO: More Efficient Than Renting Oxen (Michael Reinemer)

SNOWDEN: Spy, Nerd Or Whistleblower, Drives Everyone Nuts (Gary
Crockett)

WAR AND PEACE: Who Actually Reads All Ninety Dozen Pages? Eggheads — And Counterfeit Eggheads. (Melissa Balmain)

For Invitational Week 37: Take the name of any person, place, or thing and write a snarky description of it by using each of its letters, in order, as the first letters of your snark, as in the examples above, which were taken from long-ago Style Invitational results. It’s been seven years since we last did this.

For guidance and inspiration — and to be sure you’re not using a joke someone else already got ink for — check out our previous Style Invitational backronym results: Week 632 (2005); Week 1025 (2013); and Week 1169 (2016). (Scroll down past each of those weeks’ new contests.) We’ll be partial to contemporary references, but not dismissive of others, if they are good.

Click here for this week’s entry form. Or go to bit.ly/inv-form-37. As usual, you can submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same entry form. See the form for how to format your entries.

Deadline is Saturday, Sept. 23, at 4 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Sept. 28.

The winner gets a plush foamy jesterish hat in Mardi Gras colors, in plenty of time for you to contrive some clever purpose for it as part of a Halloween costume. Brand new and donated by the Ever-Donatin’ Dave Prevar.


Be just as jolly as this mannequin with this week’s festive prize.
Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of ten nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a personal email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for those who’ve just lost their Invite virginity. We have one today.

Arse Poetica: Winning ‘Muldoons’ from Week 35
In Week 35 we asked you to write what we called Muldoons, in honor of the wonderfully alliterative Pulitzer prizewinning Princeton poet Paul P. Muldoon, who once wrote Muldoons, and/or something very much like them. A Muldoon had to be four lines long and include (1) a geographical location — a term that we were generous enough to accept “the Underworld,” but not Mar-a-Lago, Sotheby’s or “the produce aisle” — and (2) two body parts; and (3) at least one rhyme. Also, we do not believe Mr. Muldoon’s middle name begins with a P, but we liked the continued alliteration.

Third runner-up:
He unpacked his bag and unbuttoned his coat;
He had a red nose and a very sore throat.
So no one got presents and no one got coal;
’Twas the first case of Covid to hit the North Pole.
(Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

Second runner-up:
In New York he was famed
For smart anti-crime stands,
Now Rudy can’t pinpoint
His ass with both hands.
(Stephen Gold, London)

First runner-up:
The Michelin Man was pale and wan, so to his face I spoke:
“You are so fun and jolly — why not cheer us with a joke?”
“I’ve been on worldwide jaunts to all the company’s suppliers.
I just flew in from Katmandu, and boy, are my arms tires.”
(Jonathan Paul, Garrett Park, Md.)

And the winner of the pen with the poop emoji that pops off the top:
The task of eating pizza in New York
Is done with hands, and never knife and fork.
Don’t break the rules and cause a massive eye roll —
Just fold it up and shove it in your piehole.
(Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)

Nothin’ ’doon: Honorable mentions
An ogre from the Underworld had feelings most unpleasant:
“My reflux has come back — I couldn’t eat another peasant!
My eyes were bigger than my tum,’ digestion’s not so spry.
I ought to chew before I gulp —” Then he heaved a heavy thigh.
(Jonathan Paul)

A farmer hailed an alien whose spaceship came to Earth,
He shook the creature’s giant hand for all that he was worth.
The strange being screamed as if he suffered a great harm.
“Uh-oh,” thought the farmer, “I don’t think that was his arm.”
(Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)

In Fulton County they snapped his mug
in a look unpresidential.
If the trial be fair, then his derriere
soon will be there, residential.
(Leslie Franson, Ellicott City, Md., a First Offender)

On the Texas frontier, he rides up to my rear,
Says my ass is so lovely to stare at.
So I bid him draw near, and I say in his ear,
“If you like you can give it a carrot.”
(Jonathan Paul)

It’s not his heart.
It’s not his head.
Mitch froze in D.C.
From existential dread.
(Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

When reporting to the court he claimed a weight of 215.
The clerk said, “With all due respect, you don’t appear that lean.”
“I got weighed last week in Palm Beach!” declared defendant Trump.
The clerk asked, “Did that sum include your belly and your rump?”
(Rick Bromberg, Fairfax, Va.)

An actress of the California kind
Lost face when people laughed at her behind.
“My tuchus has begun to sag, I fear:
I'll need a surgeon to bring up the rear.”
(Beverley Sharp)

In Paradise, Nevada, on a cool November night,
When Holyfield and Tyson got together for a fight,
The referee yelled, “Stop! This bout’s gone seriously south!”
“Huh, what’d you say?” Evander cried. “My ear is in his mouth!”
(Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

I offer a riddle: can you name the mollusk
That’s often discovered on Washington beaches?
A “duck” without wings, just one very long foot,
Which resembles the phallus of mammalian creatures.
(Sarah Walsh, Rockville, Md.)


A urologist’s finger.
A prostate massage.
Spermatozoa
Erupt like Krakatoa.
(Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

A man from Muskogee desired a fresh start;
Went into the hospital for a new heart.
“Oh, no!” cried the surgeon, who said with a shiver,
“My scalpel just slipped — hope he’s fond of chopped liver.”
(Beverley Sharp)

A bumbling doc from Dubuque
Was retrained by the med school at Duke.
The dean was impressed and said, “Wow —
He knows his glutes from his cubitus now.”
(Kevin Dopart, Naxos, Greece)

On the beach in Daytona one year on spring break,
She caught my eye and made my knees quake.
I kissed her sweet lips; their taste seemed to linger.
I gave her my heart but she gave me the finger.
(Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

I dreamed I was a Labrador retriever.
My wife said, “Yes, I know,” and I said “What?”
With twinkling eyes, she said I should believe her —
Last night in bed, I turned and sniffed her butt.
(Mark Raffman)

A would-be poet lived in Spain;
In vain he daily strained his brain.
But all his efforts were kaput:
He didn’t have a metric foot. (Beverley Sharp)

At Kentucky Fried Chicken, I said, “Here to eat!
But I’ve major aversions to undercooked meat.
Are your leg pieces fully cooked through, every one?”
“Oh, yes,” they assured me. “Sir, thigh will be done.”
(Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

Some devils went down to Georgia
Lookin’ to put a thumb on the scale
They were in a bind, their candidate behind —
Now their asses are headin’ to jail. (Jon Carter, Fredericksburg, Va.)

That Captain in Neverland’s in for a shock —
He’s about to encounter that croc with the clock.
At the end of the day, he’ll need more than a peg:
The bloodbath will cost him an arm and a leg. (Beverley Sharp)

Hot ruby lips, mascaraed eyes,
A penchant for outrageous lies.
Who knew a drag queen from Brazil
Could steal the show on Capitol Hill? (Jonathan Jensen)

The Galapagos Islands — a natural museum!
So get off your butt and make haste to go see ’em.
But don’t look for diamonds or sapphires or rubies;
Just keep your eyes open (in case you like boobies). (Beverley Sharp)

Her eyes shine bright as planet Venus —
A perfect match, say those who’ve seen us.
Her accent will not come between us
When she says she wants “ha-penis.” (Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.)

Said the Limerick lady, “This verse
Makes me sick to my stomach, or worse.
It’s a pain in the brain
To write a quatrain.
(With no fifth line, the thing’s just too terse.)” (Mark Raffman)

And Last: To the Empress:
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as your knee.
Your elbow crests fair Beauty’s arc.
(Please send my prize to Garrett Park.)
(Jonathan Paul, Garrett Park, Md.)

The headline “Arse Poetica” was submitted by both Chris Doyle and Jonathan Paul; Tom Witte wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 4 p.m. ET Saturday, Sept. 16: Our Week 36 contest for reasons to be respectful and compassionate toward Trumpers. Click here or type in bit.ly/inv-week-36.


InvisibleInk!
Idea: ()
Examples: (Elwood Fitzner; Michael Reinemer; Gary Crockett; Melissa Balmain)
Title: (Chris Doyle; Jonathan Paul)
Subhead: (Tom Witte)
Prize: (Dave Prevar)
VisibleInk!