Style Conversational Week 1278: Our stable geniuses


    The Style Invitational Empress surveys the crowded field of the Pun
    for the Roses


Certainly fitting, but not inking: Some of the entries for Week 1274; if
the same entry was sent by four or more people, it was scratched.
(Screen image)

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Pat Myers <https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/pat-myers/> 
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 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/pat-myers/>
Pat Myers <https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/pat-myers/>
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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May 3, 2018 at 2:56 p.m. EDT

[“Stable Geniuses” was submitted by half a dozen people as a headline
for this week’s results.]

*First thing*: /For those who are going to try our Week 1278
“grandfoals” contest <http://wapo.st/invite1278>— and I hope that’s all
of you; what do you have to lose? — you’ll want the handy-dandy list of
all 68 of this week’s inking foal names at the bottom of this page. It’s
courtesy of Loser Jesse Frankovich, who, minutes after this week’s
results went up online, had compiled it and posted it on the Style
Invitational Devotees <http://on.fb.me/invdev> Facebook page. /

Our annual foal name contest always draws a much bigger pool of entries
than most Style Invitationals, but the pool for Week 1274, whose results
run today, <http://wapo.st/invite1278> was about 10 percent larger than
last year’s. That’s something that delights me in an age when being 25
years old (the Invitational, not me; I’m 12) is not exactly considered a
virtue. The final count by Loser Jonathan Hardis, who sorts them
alphabetically for me every year (since Word won’t do what I need) was
4,213 entries, whittled from an initial count of 4,350 after Jonathan
discovered groups of entries that some people had submitted multiple times.


And so the bar was very high as I judged the foal names; my first cut
consisted of a punoramic list of 317 entries, which I had to pare to 68.
I /easily/ could have printed a list of 68 more names from that list and
would have been happy with the results. ABSOLUTELY, if you entered and
didn’t get ink this week, one of your entries would have been in that
group. (I don’t publish my “shortlist” because it would put a lot of
joke possibilities out of commission for this week’s grandfoal contest
and future contests.)

As you can see from the little sliver of printout pictured above, there
was (as always) lots of duplication among the entries, even with 100
horses to combine (that’s 4,950 possible pairings of two of the horses)
and, of course, an infinite number of punning possibilities. Here are
/some/ of the names that were entered too frequently:

Mr. President x World of Trouble (or Gotta Go) = It’s Mueller Time


Ali x B On Time = Sting like a B

Big Brown Bear x Gotta Go = In The Woods

Explorer x Alpha to Omega = Vasco da Gamma

Audible x Clever Mind = Heard Mentality

Ax Man x Mr. President = You’re Fired

Big Brown Bear x Mr. President = Grizzly Adams

Nero x Blame the Rider (or Pony Up) = FiddlerOnTheHoof

Talon x Blame the Rider (or Pony Up) = Clawed Reins

Catholic Boy x Hollywood Star (or Machismo) = Altar Ego

Catholic Boy x Mississippi = Altared State

Silver Hammer x Clever Mind = Maxwell Smart

Mendelssohn x Family Kitten = Felix the Cat

Family Kitten x Mr. President = Fake Mews

Private Eye x Family Kitten = Sam Spayed

Replicator x Family Kitten = Copy Cat


Most Amusing x Nero = Fiddle Shticks

Private Eye x Numero Thirteen = Dick Trece

Big Brown Bear x Bolt d’Oro (or Gold Town) = Ursa Miner

In some cases, I got the same name multiple times, but one cross of
parents seemed to work better than others. For example, I got at least
four entries for Kodiak Moment, but I felt that the cross of Big Brown
Bear with Beautiful Shot was better than with Personal Time, since a
“Kodak moment” refers to a photo opportunity. If the crosses were
different but seemed equally effective, I’d choose one and credit both
people.


*Note: *If you weren’t credited for the /same /cross that got ink with
someone else’s name, let me know as soon as possible and I’ll credit you
at least online. (This already happened with Bon Bon Voyage, which is
why is has the otherwise disqualifying four credits.) I basically ran
out of time to do that last entry-by-entry double-check for duplication.
It’s been a pretty busy week.


As I scanned 229 pages of printouts — I conveniently found myself in
doctors’ waiting rooms over the past week — I found myself noticing the
funny puns among the foal names before checking the crosses. While many
of this week’s inking entries don’t have a self-contained pun — the
wordplay comes from clever playing on the crosses — the pun names
probably had an advantage (unless they were old puns — pleez, people, no
more Putin On the Ritz). I’m hoping, but can’t guarantee, that/none/ of
these 68 horse names appeared as a cross between two of the thousands
and thousands of previous inking names since 2004. (I did catch a couple
of funny names we’d already done, like We the Peephole.)

As usual, we had more than the usual number of First Offenders getting
ink — eight of them this week — and as unusual, one of them wins the
whole contest. Congratulations to Luke Baker of Columbia, Md., who rose
above literally hundreds of Mr. President foals to mate B on Time with
Mr. President to make F on Policy. Luke will be getting his Fir Stink
air “freshener” along with his Lose Cannon trophy — so he’ll have to
keep entering the Invite to win a magnet like everyone else. Looking
forward to it!


Our three runners-up, the other occupants of this week’s Losers’ Circle,
are all Invite veterans; Beth Morgan (33 blots of ink) and Laurie Brink
(55) pretty much restrict themselves to the horse contests, where they
both have impressive records over the years, while Rob Wolf has sopped
up his 46 blots of ink from a variety of contests.


*What Doug Dug: * Ace Copy Editor Doug Norwood enjoyed the whole field
this week, but he especially liked the work of all the First Offenders.
I hope all of them become recidivists.

*HUH? YOURS AND MINE*

Since I published this week’s results in the past few hours, I’ve heard
from some Losers who didn’t get some of the entries. Here are a few
explainers: remember that one’s person’s “duh” is another’s “oh, I’d
never have gotten that in a million years.”


Nero x Demolition = Rex (Beth Morgan) “Rex” is Latin for king; Rex/wrecks

Alpha to Omega x Ax Man = LambdaTheSlaughter (Laurie Brink) Fun with
Greek letters.

Mt. Rushmore x Private Eye = Secret Dakota Ring (Rob Wolf) Mount
Rushmore is in South Dakota; the “secret decoder ring”
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_decoder_ring> was often given out
as a cheap prize a kid could get by sending in cereal box tops, etc.


B on Time x Mr. President = F on Policy (Luke Baker) A nifty switch from
“B” as a verb to “F” as a letter grade.

Mr. President x Walk in the Sun = Jirque du Soleil (Jon Gearhart) Cirque
du Soleil translates to “Circus of the Sun.”

Alpha to Omega x Arrival = Eta (First Offender Dave Wyman) More Greek
letter fun; I think it worked better as “Eta,” the name of the letter,
than as ETA — just one more little thing to figure out and then get that
much more of a smile


Numero Thirteen x Zing Zang = I Speak Foreign (Mike Gips) may have
confused people because it’s not a pun; it’s playing on the fact that
both names sound like bad attempts to speak a foreign language.


Retirement Fund x Ali = The Roth of Khan (Matthew Sheren) The Roth IRA,
a retirement plan; Khan and Ali as common Muslim names; Ali Khan is the
host of “Cheap Eats.” “The Wrath of Khan” is the second Star Trek movie.

Still Having Fun x One More Tom = One More, Tom (Ellen Raphaeli, Tom
Witte) I love little changes like commas that change the meaning of a
whole sentence. I’m tempted to do a contest for this but worry it will fail.

Pony Up x Bail Out = Too Big to Foal (David Peckarsky) “Too big to fail”
was the rationale for government bailouts of America’s largest banks in
the 2008 recession.


Biblical x Noble Indy = Miracle Whip (Pamela Love) Referencing Indiana
Jones and his bullwhip.


Bolt d’Oro x Replicator = Usain Clone Posse (Mary McNamara) Usain Bolt,
the fastest man in the world; Insane Clown Posse, the hip-hop duo whose
cult following has sometimes been called a gang.

Bugle Notes x Gotta Go = Nope, Bone Spurs (Wilson Varga, J. Larry
Schott) A foot ailment that seemed to affect only young men who were
eligible for the Vietnam era draft. The Healthiest President Ever had a
very bad case.

Dream Friend x Call a Cop = Incubusted (Kevin Dopart) An incubus,
according to myth, is a male demon believed to have sexual intercourse
with sleeping women. I also got an entry (with a different cross) for
Succubusted, alluding to the female equivalent.

Exclamation Point x Mr. President = Punked You Asians (Harvey Smith)
Punctuation.


Family Kitten x Walk in the Sun = Hot Tin Roof (Elliott Gilberg) The
Tennessee Williams play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ”

Good Magic x World of Trouble = David Cop a Feel (Steve Fahey) Magician
David Copperfield.

Gronkowski x Exclamation Point = Worst.Musical.Ever (David Smith,
Stockton, Calif.) Joking on the tendency of Broadway musical titles to
contain exclamation points. Like “Oklahoma!” and “Oliver!” and “Hello,
Dolly!”

Hollywood Star x Justify = They Let You (Connie Schott) “And when you’re
a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the
pussy. You can do anything.” — Abraham Lincoln

Lone Sailor x Chaps = Village Person (Bill Smith) Playing on “lone” and
the iconically gay group the Village People, whose members dressed in
stereotypical macho costumes such as cowboy, and who recorded a song
called “In the Navy.”

Mendelssohn x Hollywood Star = Felix and Oscar (Malcolm Fleschner, Kathy
Hardis Fraeman) Composer Felix Mendelssohn; the “Odd Couple” characters
of Felix and Oscar; Hollywood’s Oscars.

Mr. President x Arrival = The Ego Has Landed (Pam Sweeney) “The Eagle
has landed” — first report from the moon.

Mr. President x Firenze Fire = Donnie’s Inferno (Elizabeth Kline)
Firenze is the Italian name for the city of Florence, home to Dante,
author of “The Inferno” and its sequel, “Inferno II: Burn, Baby, Burn.”

Mr. President x Replicator = So Much Twinning (Chris Doyle) “We will
have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with the
winning.” — Dante

Nero x Bravazo = Fiddle DD (Jeff Shirley) Emperor Nero legendarily
“fiddled while Rome burned.” DD is for the “bra” of Bravazo.

Quip x Yee Haw = Yuk Owens (J.D. Berry) Buck Owens was the host of the
down-home variety show “Hee Haw.”

Retirement Fund x Firenze Fire = Roth to a Flame (Bill Dorner) See Roth
of Khan above.

Retirement Fund x Numero Thirteen = 401 Que? (Ben Aronin) The federal
401(k) retirement program; “Que?” is Spanish.

Rucksack x Mr. President = Sack (Jonathan Hardis) “Sack” as in “fire him.”

Runaway Ghost x Yee Haw = PhantomOfTheOpry (Jerome Uher) As in the Grand
Ole Opry, a mecca for old-time country music.

Silver Hammer x Bolt d’Oro = Maxweld (Roger Dalrymple) “Maxwell’s Silver
Hammer” is a jaunty Beatles song about a serial killer; “d’oro” is “of
gold.”

Strike Power x Walk in the Sun = Norma Ray-Ban (Chuck Helwig) “Norma
Rae,” the movie about a labor activist; Ray-Ban sunglasses

Tough Times x Gold Town = Hard Knox (Rick Haynes) as in Fort Knox, the
U.S. government’s gold repository

Tres Equis x Justify = X~~~~~~~X~~~~~~~X (Jeff Contompasis) Tres Equis
translates to “three X’s” (not three horses, as some people seemed to
guess); justified type is text that is spaced out to line up on both
left and right. Another nifty touch: Instead of hyphens or dashes to
justify the X’s, Jeff used a row of tildes, the Spanish accent mark.

So you get the idea about what to do for the grandfoals, right? Not
every element has to be incorporated, especially when a parent’s name
already includes a pun. But it helps if you play at least on the most
conspicuous component of a name; for Norma Ray-Ban, for example, you
might get away with ignoring “Norma,” but not “Ray-Ban.”

If history predicts the coming week and a half, I’ll get about half the
entries for Week 1278 as for Week 1274, so your odds will be better. And
you still get 2,278 combinations to work with.

*THEY SHOOT EMPRESSES, DON’T THEY? I DIDN’T GET THESE. SO...*

I couldn’t figure these out.
Replicator x Telekinesis = Sci-Fi Horses Ways
Most Amusing x Mr. President = Bi-sinistrous Sips
My Dream x Seven Trumpets = Bik and Six (Maybe Bix as in Beiderbecke?)
Slot x Quip = Slot Har

Write to me and I’ll explain them next week.

** *DQ: The Unprintables:* A few of the horse names that wouldn’t make
it past the taste police (looking up the authors as I write): **

Family Kitten x My Boy Jack = Cat-e-jism (Edward Gordon)
Zing Zang x Slot = Ben Wa Balls (Jon Ketzner)
Personal Time x For Him = A Sticky Sock (Matthew Zimmer; “...maybe convo
only?” he correctly guessed)
Clever Mind x Good Magic = Cunning Stunt (Chris Doyle “[Convo only]” he
insisted. Yeah, no prob.)
Most Amusing x Dawood = Funny Boner (Mark Raffman — even when we quote
the leader of the free world saying "pussy” and “shithole,” I don’t
think I can say “boner)
Gronkowski x Tres Equis = Tight Ends (Beth Morgan) XXX as in porn

*WATCH FOR YOUR FLUSHIES INVITATION!*

Here’s the Facebook link
<https://www.facebook.com/events/173123093390270/> for the invitation to
the 23rd annual Flushies, the Losers’ own awards (potluck) banquet and
songfest. I’ll be sending out an Evite as well; write me to get your
name added, though I’ll link here to it next week as well. It’s on
Saturday, June 9, noon to 4, in McLean, Va. Please rearrange your
wedding plans, jail time, etc., to make this important event. Michelle
Wolf isn’t expected, but I’m hoping for Rob Wolf. His voice is more
pleasant, anywayy

Here’s the list for Week 1278, all nice and alphabetized. Thanks again
to Jesse Frankovich.

Absorba the Greek

Big Brown Bare

Bon Bon Voyage

Cashless Clay

Cassius Claymore

David Cop a Feel

Donnie’s Inferno

Eta

F on Policy

Felix and Oscar

Fiddle DD

Fighter Pilate

For Her

401 Que?

Gaseous Clay

Genital Ben

GhoulsOutForSummer

Hard Knox

HeFollowedMeHome

Hock Finn

Hot Tin Roof

How I Met Yo Mama

Hurt Dateeth

I Got Ink!

I Speak Foreign

Incubusted

Invisible Ink

It’s Still a Sin

Jacob’s Bladder

Jirque du Soleil

Kodiak Moment

LambdaTheSlaughter

Laugh Savings

Magna Cum Loud

Maxweld

Mind Over Martyr

Miracle Whip

MLK and Cookies

Noah Veil

Nope, Bone Spurs

Norma Ray-Ban

Ol’ Man Ripper

One More, Tom

Penn and Yeller

PhantomOfTheOpry

Punked You Asians

Questosterone

Rex

Roamin’ Emperor

Roth to a Flame

Ruckus in the Sack

Sack

Secret Dakota Ring

Smart Ash

Sneezy Listening

So Much Twinning

Splitting Heirs

The Ego Has Landed

The Roth of Khan

They Let You

Too Big to Foal

Twain

Usain Clone Posse

Village Person

Wit Man’s Sampler

Worst.Musical.Ever

X~~~~~~~X~~~~~~~X

Yuk Owens