Style Invitational Week 1500: This goes to 15
Make up a new word whose letters add to 15 Scrabble points. Plus winners of our latest compare/contrast contest.
PIZA (3+1+10+1): What you get when the Domino’s guy tipped over his bag on the way to your house. (Bob Staake for The Washington Post)
—If you’re not yet getting this free newsletter by email (or if you got dropped because you didn’t expressly opt in since we moved over to Substack): By all means …
ZOOB: A co-worker who doesn’t get videoconference etiquette. “And then he took over the screen just to show he’d solved today’s Wordle in 3! What a zoob.”
CAFFOON: Someone who’s constantly spilling the coffee or leaving the pot on too long.
This week we celebrate reaching Week 1500 (dang!) with another of our signature neologism contests: Make up a word or phrase whose Scrabble letter values add up to exactly 15 (no blanks!) and define it, as in the examples above. Your single word may not be eligible for English-language Scrabble; to check, just type in the word at scrabble.merriam.com to make sure it’s not valid. Deadline is Monday night, Aug. 15.
And we have the results to that recurring contest in which I list a dozen or so random items and the Losers always come up with clever ways to show how they’re alike or different. A couple of samples from this week:
8 percent inflation and Old Bay: They’ve both been added lately to every item in the grocery store.
A flushable wipe and six Supreme Court justices: They’re both up in my business.
In my supplementary column The Style Conversational, I talk about this week’s contests and results, and dish a little about this year’s Loserfest in Niagara Falls, Ontario, which I’m still recovering from. (See our equivalent of wet T-shirt photos!)
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LINKS TO …
This week’s Invitational column, Week 1500
The same column for non-subscribers (but do sign up — there are always great promotions going on!)
This week’s Style Conversational column
Paywall-free entry form for Week 1500
Still running -- deadline Monday night, Aug. 8: In Week 1499, write a caption for any of four wacky Bob Staake cartoons — up to 25 in all. Paywall-free entry form for Week 1499.
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 have two seasons’ worth 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.