Style Conversational Week 1198: Win valuable Style Invitational prizes!
Mugs: value $4.23; bags: value $3.57; magnets: value 21 cents
By Pat Myers
Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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October 20, 2016
L et’s be frank. For Week 1198 of The Style
Invitational.
I hadn’t realized, until prompted by a suggestion from Ultra-Loser Chris
Doyle on the Style Invitational Devotees page on
Facebook, that we hadn’t done the “plain English” contest in a long time.
The contest was originally inspired by then-Vice President Gore’s call
in 1998 for government forms and directives to be written simply and
straightforwardly. But it’s not just bureaucrats and politicians who
can’t, or don’t want to, explain themselves clearly: There’s the
advertising world, of course, but also all of us who have the occasional
reason to be less than forthright, not to mention all the people who
think that sounding like legal boilerplate makes them seem important.
The Czar of The Style Invitational
headlined the
first of these contests (Week 342,
March 2000) “Plainly Ridiculous,” asking readers to “take any direct
quotation from any article in today’s Washington Post and translate it
into ‘plain English’ ” and required that the sentences be “direct
quotations.” The Czar’s examples:
“This country will be in the damnedest crisis it ever faced.” — Jim
Johnson, president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers
Association, predicting what will happen if the nation does not help
truckers cope with rising fuel costs.
Plain English version: “We are huge. Our muscles have bulging blue
veins. We drink beer and drive vehicles that can penetrate brick walls.
Do you want us angry?”
“Property owners are like Regis Philbin: We just want a final answer.” —
Jerry Howard, lobbyist for a national home builders’ association, in
support of a House bill that would streamline zoning decisions.
Plain English version: “Property owners are like Regis Philbin. We just
want to make obscene amounts of money for very little work.”
Like the examples, the inking entries four weeks later included
explanations of the sentences’ context. (I’m not sure whether I’ll do
that this time; it’d be best if it’s clear enough what the sentence is
about.) Here are some of the winners; see them all here
(or, if you’re blocked by The Post’s paywall, here
in a slightly less readable form).
REPORT FROM WEEK IX [don’t ask] . . . Many people did not seem to
understand what we meant by a “direct quotation.” Quoting directly from
a newspaper story is not necessarily a direct quotation. “A direct
quotation is something uttered aloud by a person and contained between
quotation marks,” explained the Czar of the Style Invitational. This
error disqualified several otherwise worthy entries /[this is why I’ve
done away with this restriction], /the best of which was by Sue Lin
Chong of Washington, who lifted the following line of prose from Miss
Manners: Surely we have the right to assume whatever appearance we wish
without suffering for it. Sue Lin’s plain English translation: Stop
laughing at me because I wear a bustle. Also, Greg Arnold of Herndon
lifted this line from an advertisement: It’s The Biggest Furniture
Giveaway Ever! His plain English version: We’re open.
*Fourth Runner-Up:* “We hope this will be the first of many such
ventures. The internationalization of baseball has begun.”
--Commissioner Bud Selig, on Major League Baseball opening its regular
season in Japan.
Plain English version: “We’ll put a team in Ulan Bator before the D.C.
area sees one again.” (Bruce W. Alter, Fairfax Station; Elliott Jaffa,
Arlington) /[Almost exactly five years later, the Washington Nationals
played their first game] /
*Third Runner-Up:* “I’m not proposing tax relief because it’s the
popular thing to do, I’m proposing it because it’s the right thing to
do.” --George W. Bush.
Plain English version: “I’m proposing it because it’s a right popular
thing to do.” (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)
*Second Runner-Up: * “I am okay. I am capable. There is no one exactly
like me.” -- Students reciting a motivational pledge in a high school
self-esteem class in Charlotte.
Plain English version: “I am okay. I am capable. There is no one exactly
like me aside from the 20 other people saying the same thing.” (James
Pierce, Charlottesville)
*First Runner-Up:* “We need a change. A cold brain means sober
calculations.” --Oleg Makeyev, a Russian voter, on the icy personality
of Boris Yeltsin’s successor.
Plain English version: “We need a change. A sober brain means sober
calculations.” (David Genser, Arlington)
*And the winner of the U.S.S.R. tour books:* “It feels like nothing,
actually.” --Cybermagnate Michael Saylor, on what it’s like to lose more
than a billion dollars in one day of stock reversals.
Plain English version: “I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel my legs!”
(Martin Bredeck, Community, Va.)
*Honorable Mentions:*
“The Japanese take their baseball very seriously.” --Mark Grace, Cubs
first baseman.
Plain English version: “After he dropped a fly ball, I was not expecting
their right fielder to disembowel himself.” (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)
/[I’m thinking that current racial sensitivities would preclude such an
entry now, though the Czar disagreed when I asked him today] /
“Attractive engineer, DHM, 39, honest, successful, ISO S/DPF, 29- 40 for
companionship.”
Plain English version: “I am a pathetic geek. ISO someone who can
calculate {pi} to the 15th decimal place and wants to cuddle in the warm
flicker of my Unix mainframe while we contemplate the integration of the
natural logarithm to the x-power, (e, get it? Ha ha!) (Cheryl Davis,
Arlington)
“This era does not reward people who struggle in vain to redraw borders
with blood.” --President Clinton, on Pakistani TV.
Plain English version: “This era only rewards people who successfully
redraw borders with blood.” (Beth Baniszewski, Columbia)
“Bush must reposition the issue environment.” --A Gore spokesman on the
weakness of a tax cut as an issue for Bush.
Plain English version: “Yes, I know my guy has called for a return to
plain English, but old habits die hard.” (Mike Genz, La Plata; Russell
Beland, Springfield)
—
Oddly, I didn’t bring back the contest till September 2007 ,
when I used the confusing headline “Otherwordly Visions,” (a play on “in
other words” that doesn’t work well). For the example, I used Jennifer
Hart’s brilliant “right popular thing to do” runner-up from the first
contest. I dropped the “direct quotation” requirement and allowed
anything from The Post or washingtonpost.com during the whole entry window.
*Among the winners from Week 729 (see the rest * here
or here
):
4. (Job posting) The mission of the Office of the Chief Financial
Officer (OCFO) is to enhance the financial stability, accountability and
integrity of the Government of the District of Columbia.
Plain English Version: Good morning, Mr. Phelps . . . (Brendan Beary,
Great Mills)
3. “It was the one of the most different halves of football I’ve ever
been around.”
PE: “It’s too soon after the game for me to talk good again yet.”
(Russell Beland, Springfield)
2. the winner of the stationery made of Panda Poo paper:
“Our overall evaluation is that real progress has been achieved,” Jones
told the senators, and then he qualified that judgment with words such
as “uneven,” “unsatisfactory,” “overly sectarian” and “failed.”
PE: “After uneven, unsatisfactory and overly sectarian progress, our
overall evaluation is that failure has been achieved.” (Kevin Dopart,
Washington)
And the Winner of the Inker: “If the kind of success we are now seeing
continues, it will be possible to maintain the same level of security
with fewer American forces,” Bush said.
PE: “Sure, maintaining the level of ‘insanely dangerous’ takes almost no
troops at all.” (Russ Taylor, Vienna)
Iraq Study Group report: “Good policy is difficult to make when
information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its
discrepancy with policy goals.”
PE: “Bush cooks the books.” (Kevin Dopart; Ned Stone, Atlanta)
FREE RAZR PHONES!
PE: EXPENSIVE SERVICE AGREEMENTS! (Ira Allen, Bethesda)
“And -- let’s be honest here -- “
PE: “And — let me sugarcoat this a little less than usual--” (Russell
Beland)
“Seeks intelligent, civilized man, 60+ for lasting friendship.”
PE: “Is hopelessly delusional.” (Kevin Dopart)
Complete auto care starts with our $17.99 oil change.
PE: For only $17.99, we’ll tell you that you need new shocks, struts,
brakes, exhaust system, valve cover gaskets, water pump, CV joints,
wiper blades and, of course, tires. (Russ Taylor)
---
Finally, I did the contest inDecember 2010,
with the headline “Catch Their Drift. “ For the example, I used Russ
Taylor’s oil-change ad, and once again the sentences had to be in The
Post. *Some of the Week 897 winners *(see the rest here
or here
):
The winner of the Inker:
Sentence in The Post: “The positions the Obama administration is taking
today are not the traditional positions of most Democrats.”
Plain English: They’re trying out alternatives to “fetal.” (Danny
Bravman, Chicago)
Fourth place: Obama: “Our success depends on our willingness to engage
in the kind of honest conversation and cooperation that hasn’t always
happened in Washington.”
PE: “We’re doomed.” (Kevin Dopart, Washington)
“We clearly have to continue to provide the message to the Afghan people
about why we’re here and what it is that we want to do,” Petraeus said.
PE: “Can somebody tell me why we’re here and what it is that we want to
do?” (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase)
This is a show about being a disaffected, emotionally scarred New Yorker.
PE: This is a show about being a New Yorker. (Kevin Dopart)
Richard Nixon, discussing various ethnic groups on a recently released
tape: “I’ve just recognized that, you know, all people have certain
traits. . . .”
PE: Mine is that I’m a sleazy bigot. (Russell Beland, Fairfax; Nan
Reiner, Alexandria)
The tax deal “offers the best prospect that was available for achieving
the kind of escape velocity that we’ve been seeking for the past two
years.”
PE: “We hope to escape being murdered in the next election.” (Judy
Blanchard, Novi, Mich.)
Redskins Coach Mike Shanahan: “I’m not exactly sure at this time exactly
what we’re going to do or what direction we’re going to go.”
PE: “I’m exactly sure that we don’t know how to win.” (Jeff Contompasis,
Ashburn)
--
So that should give you plenty of inspiration for Week 1198 — and since
The Post has instituted a paywall since 2010, I’m not even making you
use Post stories. *HOWEVER, YOU SHOULD AVAIL YOURSELVES OF THIS GREAT
DEAL:* The Post keeps sending me email promotions that, as an existing
paying-a-lot subscriber, I cannot use, /but as a current freeloader, you
can:/ $19 FOR A WHOLE YEAR for the whole washingtonpost.com website.
While of course The Style Invitational is by far the most important
piece of “content” of the week, The Post publishes something on the
order of 700 other pieces of content /every day,/ and I’m told that many
of them are interesting. Here’s the link;
I don’t know how long it’s good for, so I wouldn’t dawdle. (By the way:
If you subscribe to the print Post, you also subscribe to the online
Post. Also, a number of other newspapers offer free Post subscriptions
to their own subscribers; see the FAQ page here
.)
*ORIGIN OF THE SPECIOUS*: THE RESULTS OF WEEK 1194*
/*A great non-inking entry sent by both Mark Raffman and Chris Doyle;
because of a change in headline type size in the print paper, the
alternative heads have to be shorter these days/
In the fictoid tradition, this week’s inking entries
are mostly takeoffs on traditional dictionary entries or fun facts in
trivia books — and for at least a few, containing at least a second or
two’s worth of plausibility. And they make some kind of joke.
A lot of entries this week didn’t do these things.
First, some people thought this was the same contest as our recurring
one to redefine an existing word, rather than to explain where it came
from (e.g., “Gallery: Where Donald Trump will choose his next wife”).
A few people sent whole stories of how the word came about; 200-word
jokes are fine in many settings, but the Invite can’t handle them.
Some words were too obscure: If you have no idea what a binnacle is,
will you laugh about an untrue story of the word’s origin? (It’s the
built-in housing for a ship’s compass; now you know.)
And some had clever fake derivations but nothing funny: “November: A
portmanteau of “/nova/ and /ember./ As the winter approached, keeping
warm became a priority, so it was time to stoke fires with new hot coals.”
That one was by Jeff Contompasis — who won the whole contest this week.
With a very funny entry.
Jeff, in fact, got two inks this week, raising his lifetime inkage from
528 to 530. But the real story is runner-up Warren Tanabe’s /five/ inks:
Warren jumps from 53 to 58 blots — catapulting him 10 places to No. 129
in the all-time standings .
We heard from both of my favorite copy desk Invite-readers this week:
*What Doug Dug: * In addition to the Losers’ Circle entries, Doug
Norwood liked the derivations of “offhand” (Mark Raffman), “grammar”
(also Mark), “committee” (Warren Tanabe) and “diagnose” (JefCon). *Laugh
out of Courtney: * Courtney Rukan says, “I’m a fan of ‘politics’ (Kevin
Dopart), ‘dowager’ (Chris Doyle), ‘committee,’ ‘technology’ (Warren
Tanabe) and ‘furniture’ (Lynne Larkin).”
*IT’S CAPTION CRUNCH*
The deadline is Monday, Oct. 24, for the Week 1197
contest to provided captions for any of four
Bob Staake cartoons. And when we run the results online on Nov. 10, I’ll
finally be able to put the winning captions under each of the cartoons,
rather than have all the drawings at the top of the page.