Style Invitational Week 1486: No Can Do
Tell us a "sign of incompetence" in a certain field. Plus more neologisms! And an invitation!
Cartoon by Bob Staake for The Washington Post
Sign of an incompetent fast-food worker: You order fries and he asks if you want fries with that.
—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 …
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Sign of an incompetent phone-sex operator: “I’m 39 and sort of dumpy, wearing a pink housecoat . . .”
Sign of an incompetent sommelier: “Do you want a glass with that?”
Sign of an incompetent optometrist: “Can you read the FELOPZ line?”
This week, a contest that The Style Invitational seems to have done only once before — 20 years ago: Give us a clue that someone was incompetent in a particular field, as in the examples above that got ink in Week 439. Deadline for Week 1486: Monday night, May 9.
And we have the results of The Tile Invitational, our ninth contest to come up with new words from seven-letter “racks” from the ScrabbleGrams word game that appears on The Post’s comics pages. Like this one:
AABNNOZ > BAANO: The lead singer of Ewe2.
In my supplementary column, The Style Conversational, I share the results from our first signs-of-incompetence contest, and I share the Evite for the May 21 Flushies — the Loser Community’s annual potluck picnic/awards/songfest, once again at the very welcoming backyard patio of Loser Steve Leifer. Yes, even you are invited.
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LINKS TO …
This week's Invitational column, Week 1486, and results of Week 1482
The same column for non-subscribers (but do sign up — there are always great promotions going on!)
No-paywall entry form for Week 1486
This week’s Style Conversational column
Still running -- deadline Monday night, May 2: A neologism contest: Switch the positions of two letters within a word or name (next to each other or more distant) and describe the result. Like branacles — the bits of cereal that stick to the bowl like glue if you don’t wash it right away. See Week 1485 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.