Therefore Rivka’s successful “air quotes” access for Week 1511: “RSV”P: Sure, we’d be overjoyed! And we’ll be bringing little Makayla — don’t concern, her virus is the majority higher.”
The Clowner is Rivka’s first “grand” prize within the Invite, and her 14th blot of ink in all. Partner Ben, who’s been Inviting for a few years longer, additionally were given ink this week; his honorable point out for the additionally close-to-home “In“flu”encer: An anti-vaxxer who makes you cross viral” is his 113th blot.
(Amusing truth for Seder-goers: Have you ever ever noticed, in an older haggadah, a parody of “Clementine” paraphrasing the passage in regards to the 4 Sons? That’s by way of … Ben Aronin! But it surely’s from 1948, and by way of Ben’s uncle. Between you and me, Our Ben is best with the parodies.)
The Losers’ Circle is stuffed out this week by way of veteran Ann Martin, whose “Marve‘lous e’vening!” will get the “100 Pooping Domestic dogs” jigsaw puzzle (I’m beautiful positive that it’s simply squatting domestic dogs and no precise product depicted), Transformative Rookie Karen Lambert (Fist“ICU”ffs) — 3 blots nowadays give her 59 inks in 39 weeks — and a just-about-newbie: Al Lubran, who will get simply his 2nd blot of ink for an access (he’s urged contests and donated a prize) for S“ex”ting, the way you misplaced your spouse. Al has already joined the Loser group at two Loser occasions: the brunch honoring Elden Carnahan and remaining weekend’s festivities at TopGolf.
As soon as once more, Air Quotes is the competition that assists in keeping on giving; I feel that is the 8th time working this contest in nearly the similar approach. Like Rivka with RSV, many Losers took benefit of topical names, equivalent to Ye and Xi and Oz. and Metaverse, and naturally a whole lot of present references of their descriptions — the dried-up Missis”sip”ppi, Trump’s Save A”me”rica PAC. All 47 inking entries this week have compatibility onto the print web page as neatly, and there have been no editorial objections to any of them.
What didn’t paintings as neatly? A couple of issues I famous a number of the 1,500 entries (I didn’t glance up who wrote any of those):
Misspelling the quoted phrase: Qu“err”ulous and A “cape”lla (one thing a couple of superhero) have been amongst them. The entries wouldn’t have labored as qu“er”ulous or A “cappe”lla.
Relating to the fallacious a part of speech: If the primary phrase is a noun, the outline will have to be of a noun, now not of the parenthetical phrase. Distinction with this one: Lot“har”io: Conventional response to a wannabe seducer. Suave thought, however the definition will have to refer as a substitute to that laughable seducer. In a similar way: “Garb”ageman: A reflective protection vest.
Too many: A lot of people despatched in one thing like “Meh”met Oz.: He doesn’t appear to be exciting sufficient electorate. Proper, I do know, how are you able to know what different persons are going to ship? That’s why you get 25 possibilities.
No irony: If the interior phrase if truth be told method what the primary one does, that doesn’t paintings. Summa cum “laud”e: When folks gush about their kid’s instructional achievements. Every other used to be a headline thought for S’ick’ Humor.
No longer stated in a humorous approach, or makes no witty or a laugh level or remark: Em“ploy”er: A md who makes use of guile to stay the wages of his workers low. “Prior”y: Former place of abode of ousted cleric.
No real-life which means; it’s simply to paintings for this contest: “Oat”h Keepers: Insurrectionists who call for natural granola when incarcerated. [Update! I misspoke here: Author Judy Freed notes that the “Shaman” Oath Keeper had demanded organic food in jail. It would have tipped readers off better had it referred to “that insurrectionist who …”]
Too explicit and localized: “Spit On Y’s” Pizza: Tip giant — or get a loose additional topping! The entrant did give an explanation for that there’s a Spitony’s Pizza approach out in rural Warrenton, Va.
Too sophisticated; nobody would learn it: “p“i““r““a”t””e””” [“a” within “rat” within “rate” within “irate” within “pirate”]: The type of jerk who steals your cable and so raises costs for the entire community, making you indignant.
We used it in previous contests: Jesse Frankovich were given ink in 2019 with “Spur”ious: What positive draft deferments have been. I noticed that once or more this time round, regardless that now not as neatly worded. Remember the fact that you’ll see (and seek for) All The Invite Ever Written; simply name up the All Invitational Textual content web page at NRARS.org, the Losers’ personal web site (wait a couple of seconds for it to load).
No air: The unprintables: Suave however no:
C”hardon”nay: Who says alcohol interferes with male efficiency? (Jonathan Jensen)
Clea”vag”e: An appetizer that will get you enthusiastic about the primary direction. (Tom Witte)
Washington “POS”t: A crappy newspaper everybody will have to cancel their subscription to. (D.T., Mar-a-Lago)
Oh mappy day! (Phase 2) This week’s contest, Week 1515
For the reason that we did the similar contest 10 weeks in the past, with towns in the USA and Canada, it will have to be beautiful transparent methods to do Week 1515, by which we tackle Europe/Eurasia (i.e., together with Russia, Turkey and a few former S.S.R.s like Armenia).
Right here’s the announcement for Week 1505.
As soon as once more, right here’s the hyperlink to the 51-country listing we’re the usage of for eligible international locations — and you’ll use cities from any place within the nation, even the Asian section.
And if you wish to bring to mind jokes after which in finding cities for them, geotargit.com (click on on “Towns”) will likely be a large lend a hand, regardless that there are nonetheless cities to be discovered on Google that didn’t display right here; Bob Staake discovered Misplaced, Germany by way of Googling although it didn’t display up in Geotargit. Thank you once more to Randy Lee for sharing this li’l helper.
Some variations from remaining time:
— Overseas cities provide extra pronunciation problems than U.S. ones do. As I stated within the Invite, I’m now not hard utterly unique pronunciations, particularly if town isn’t widely known. For a lovely widely known town like Great, France, I’m vacillating, however I almost certainly gained’t finally end up opting for ones that require us to pronounce it just like the English phrase “great” fairly than “neece” — we don’t wish to glance ignorant.
— I don’t need this to turn out to be some other head-scratcher of lengthy strings of names. In case you have this type of string, have any person learn it out loud to you and give an explanation for, and not using a trace, what you’re seeking to say. (Subsequent January: “Joint Regulation.” We’ll see in regards to the identify strings then.)
— Moscow or Moskva? With well-known towns, I’d stay it to the English variations for the shaggy dog story to be extra obtainable, however the different may just paintings as neatly. I gained’t rule them out. (Don’t use the non-PC Russian names for Ukrainian towns, please!) If the spelling is similar, don’t use the overseas pronunciation; should you’re the usage of Paris, don’t be expecting for the reader to assume “Paree.”
— Put the names of the international locations on the finish of the access, however this time don’t use abbreviations; The Publish doesn’t abbreviate overseas international locations, and the audio model of the Invite (click on at the “pay attention” icon slightly below the caricature) in reality screwed up the state names.
— NEW ENTRY FORM! Beginning this very week, I’m writing the contest access shape via Google Bureaucracy fairly than The Publish’s personal, however soon-to-be-retired, Sub Platform. I labored it up just about by myself, mainly copying the outdated one into the Shape’s more than a few fields.
The shortened URL, wapo.st/enter-invite-[this week’s week number], would be the similar, and as sooner than, it’s now not topic to The Publish’s paywall; you don’t must subscribe to peer it.
As sooner than, there’s simply an open field (it would simply seem like a line) so that you can put all of your entries. You presently will have to have the ability to use boldface and italics. Please proceed to make use of the one-line structure (don’t push Input in the midst of the access) for normal entries, and common poetry shape for poems and songs. It does glance as though house between your entries gained’t disappear, because it’s been doing on Sub in recent times — in order that’s excellent!
It seems like I will be able to maintain the blind judging. I’m intended so that you could obtain all of the entries onto a spreadsheet, then replica out solely the sphere with the textual content of the entries, to type and edit them. So your names will likely be utterly invisible to me till the tip of the method.
The entire Washington Publish is changing to Google Bureaucracy and Microsoft Bureaucracy, so we’ll all be finding out about tactics to refine the bureaucracy. As an example, for now I’m asking you to only kind for your identify and cope with; there’s no approach to make use of auto-fill.
Let me learn about your reviews with this type, and be at liberty to invite about options I may be able to upload. Arms crossed for this week’s!
Talking of printability …
One inking access remaining week — the competition used to be for poems the usage of just one vowel — introduced two outraged proceedings from readers; it’s a excellent representation of why a few of our humor works higher on-line than within the print paper. The poem used to be all of 3 little traces, 17 syllables: an only-E’s haiku by way of Chris Doyle, within the wake of the antisemitic rant and tweets by way of Kanye West, who now is going by way of Ye.
West’s ever newsy,
Sez, “Each and every Jew screws me.” The
Much less Ye, the simpler.
I had needed to persuade an editor that the Invite has used the time period “screw” repeatedly, particularly in a nonsexual sense. However that wasn’t the criticism.
The primary one, after the print version arrived on Sunday:
Please pull the Invitational or the section about Kanye West.
No one in the world will have to be enthusiastic about him in a context as opposed to anti-semitism. And there’s NO explanation why to shaggy dog story about him.
Have you learnt that HE HAS MORE FOLLOWERS THAN THERE ARE JEWS ON THE PLANET!!!”
“That is very anti-semetic-. My relations could be very disillusioned. “Each and every Jew screws me.” Apology wanted for all from POST and Pat Myers & Chris Doyle.” [wife and husband’s names] “LONG time subscribers.”
As I at all times do to those that write in — which is, to explain, nearly by no means — I wrote again with politeness, explaining that The Taste Invitational used to be condemning Kanye West, now not celebrating him, that we’ve got condemned nasty folks from Osama bin Weighted down to Vladimir Putin to Pol Pot. After which I noticed what the confusion should were: Those readers didn’t acknowledge “Ye” within the 3rd line as regarding Kanye West — with the intention to them, the poem simply let him rant and not were given the final word.
The general public who nonetheless get the print Publish are neatly over age 50. Chris Doyle himself is definitely neatly neatly over age 50, however he remains present. It will have to have passed off to me that some older folks may now not get Chris’s level, and I will have to have run it solely on-line, possibly with a hyperlink at the “Ye.”
Haven’t heard again from both of the letter-writers.
A Wednesday Invite subsequent week!
As we do each Thanksgiving week, we’ll put the Invite up on-line subsequent Wednesday morning (possibly somewhat later than the standard 10 or 10:15 a.m.), for the reason that Sunday phase will likely be typeset that afternoon. As a result of this implies I’ve to complete the week’s paintings 24 hours previous — Bob may be happening holiday and wishes his paintings previous — I’ll almost certainly be pooped by way of Wednesday and not going to do the Conversational.
So wishing you the happiest and Loseriest of Thanksgivings — take into account that at all times a laugh hobby of family-generated Invite entries.