Style Invitational Week 1476: Matchless humor -- show us some Googlenopes (no paywall with this link!)
Find a phrase that, funnily, doesn't have any Google hits -- or one that, funnily, does
Illustration by Bob Staake for The Washington Post
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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”
You’d think that, by 2022, there’s no longer anything that can’t be found on Google. But you would be, once again (it’s okay, we won’t judge), wrong. This week for Style Invitational Week 1476: Find us a Googlenope — a phrase in quotation marks that generates the message “It looks like there aren’t many great matches for your search” (or you get just a few entries that don’t actually contain the phrase) — or a Googleyup, a phrase that surprisingly does have hits (mention how many). And you could contrast a Googlenope with one or more Googleyups, as in Duncan Stevens’s comparison above from our 2018 contest.
And in our ongoing campaign to bring a whole world of inaccuracy to our readers, we have the winning fictoids — fake trivia — about money and finance. Like:
A Susan B. Anthony dollar is 82 percent the size of the previous Eisenhower dollar.
or
A little-known section of the U.S. tax code exempts citizens from paying taxes if they have bone spurs in their feet.
NEW!! If you can’t access the Invite from the link above, use this one instead — but I do hope you’ll subscribe to The Post. Tell them I sent you.
In my weekly supplementary column, The Style Conversational, I share some Googlenopes and ’Yups from previous contests. And it’s last call for the Feb. 20 Loser Brunch in Bethesda, Md. Come on out and complain to the Empress!
LINKS TO …
This week's Invitational column, Week 1476, and results of Week 1472
The same column for non-subscribers (but do sign up — there are always great promotions going on!)
No-paywall entry form for Week 1476
This week’s Style Conversational column
Still running -- Deadline Monday night, Feb. 28 (same as this week’s): It’s our contest for a song or cheer for Washington’s newly named NFL team, the Commanders — or, if you’re not into football, you can do any D.C. institution. So song parody or just a cheer; football or something else. We are just one big pair of open arms. See Week 1475 here; see the no-paywall entry form here.
More ways to enjoy The Style Invitational and be part of the Loser Community:
Join the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook and the Devs will anagram your name every which way.
Also on Facebook, the Style Invitational Ink of the Day page presents one classic entry as a colorful graphic that's easy to share. "Like" the page to get it regularly on your news feed, or to scroll through the archives. bit.ly/inkofday.
And we're now on Season 2 of the You're Invited podcast, half-hour episodes with host Mike Gips and various Invite luminaries. Catch all 18 episodes at bit.ly/invite-podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
— Pat Myers, Empress of The Style Invitational, pat.myers@washpost.com (or just reply to this email)
*That's Loser with a capital L; named for the runner-up prizes emblazoned "LOSER," the community of regular Style Invitational entrants now proudly calls itself the Losers. If you enter the Invite, you're a Genuine Loser. But not (necessarily) a loser.