Style Invitational Week 1506: Let's go magnet- fishing through new dictionary terms
Write a short, funny poem using any of 32 of them, from 'pwn' to 'pumpkin spice.' Plus this year's hi-larious "hi-"word limericks.
Cartoon by Bob Staake for The Washington Post
The meal that chefs call OMAKASE
(A favorite of the sushi posse)
The raw-fish lover's trendy favorite
Alas, when done they have to pay for it.
—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 …
The Empress’s predecessor , “Czar” Gene Weingarten, a passionate devotee of Japanese restaurants, offers our sample poem today; Merriam-Webster tells us that the word “omakase” to mean a chef’s-choice dinner first appeared in English in 1969, but it was just added to its dictionary, along with a group of 371 other words and new meanings of existing ones. For Style Invitational Week 1506, choose among 32 of them and write a funny short poem (eight lines or fewer). Deadline for Week 1506 is Tuesday night (one extra day!), Sept. 27.
And it’s verse-in-verse-out this week: We have the cream of this year’s Limerixicon, our annual contest to support the limerick dictionary project at OEDILF.com; this week’s results are feature words and names beginning with “hi-” (and yes, Hillary just might be there). As always, Invite limericks leave other ’ricks rolling with their clever wordplay and general zinginess.
And do! not! miss! the true story behind one limerick about an encounter with a hippopotamus. It’s in my supplementary column, The Style Conversational, in which I also discuss the limerick results and the week’s new contest, and give the last call on this Sunday’s Loser brunch in Northern Virginia. (Want to join us?)
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LINKS TO …
This week’s Invitational column, Week 1506, with the results of Week 1502
The same column for non-subscribers (but do sign up — there are always great promotions going on!)
This week’s Style Conversational column
The Convo for non-subscribers
Paywall-free entry form for Week 1506
Still running -- deadline Monday night, Sept. 12:
Week 1505, our wordplay contest to pair any two U.S. or Canadian towns in a “sister cities” venture. (Paywall-free entry form for Week 1505)
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. Follow 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.