Style Invitational Week 1479: It's the WordleVite!

Give us a phrase made of 5-letter words. Plus winning songs and cheers for the Washington Commanders and other D.C. institutions.

“Napoleon 2:0”: Progression by Melissa Balmain; illustration by Bob Staake for The Post

—If you’re not yet getting this newsletter by email (or if you got dropped because you didn’t expressly opt in since we moved over to Substack): By all means …

This week’s contest, Week 1479, asks you to write a progression of two to six five-letter words — as in the viral game Wordle — that makes a phrase, then describe it (or say something else funny about it). The only way it’s like Wordle, besides the five-letter words, is that once a letter is “green” — in the position that it’s in at the bottom of the word ladder — it has to stay in that position. Deadline for Week 1479: Monday night, March 21.

For some more about the contest rules — this one takes some explaining — see my supplementary column, The Style Conversational. Also in the Convo this week, I share a mini-history of the Invite that was my contribution to a tribute book made as a surprise present to my predecessor, Gene Weingarten, by 14 of his friends and colleagues.

And parodies! The contest was for songs and cheers for the newly named Washington Commanders, the beleaguered football team formerly known as the Racial Slurs. (Let’s say you won’t be seeing any of these paeans on the Jumbotron.) For non-football people, I also welcomed songs for other D.C. institutions — we have everything from the National Zoo to Metrorail to the National Archives’ paste-it-back-together crew. With three videos!

LINKS TO …
This week's Invitational column, Week 1479, and results of Week 1475 
The same column for non-subscribers (but do sign up — there are always great promotions going on!)
No-paywall entry form for Week 1479
This week’s Style Conversational column

Still running -- deadline Monday night, March 14: Write a humorous poem using only the 1,000 most common words according to Randall Munroe, creator of the famed Up Goer Five — a simple-word name for the Saturn-V rocket — and a nifty tool called Simple Writer: You just type something into the box and it’ll tell you if your words are on the list. See Week 1478 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.