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February 10, 2010
 

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational

I received these in an e-mail so please accept my apologies if you've heard them. They're actually worth passing on but I refuse to forward e-mails for entertainment purposes. So I post here:

  • Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
  • Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
  • Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
  • Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
  • Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
  • Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
  • Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
  • Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
  • Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
  • Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
  • Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right?  And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

Comments (1)

Feb 11, 2010
 said...
From the Empress of The Style Invitational:

There actually is no "Mensa Invitational," but The Washington Post does have a wonderfully clever humor contest called The Style Invitational. And and a Style Invitational contests from 1998 is the source of many -- but not all -- of the neologisms in the list above. (For example, "decafalon" isn't a one-letter change from "decathlon," is it? Or "caterpallor"?)

Much better to see the real thing -- every week at washingtonpost.com/styleinvitational. The Style Invitational is a weekly humor/wordplay contest with unbelievably clever humor contributed by thousands of readers. It's published every Saturday in The Post's Style (features) section, and every Friday afternoon at about 3:30. There are neologism contests regularly, but also lots of other sources of humor as well.

The most recent results (Feb. 7, 2010) were for “shrunken” movie and book titles.

The top winners:

The Fifth Sense: "I smell dead people." (Adam and Russell Beland, Fairfax)

The Mediocre Gatsby: The biography of Tareq Salahi. (Ira Allen, Bethesda)

Slaughterhouse $4.99: A family gets to choose among beef, chicken and pork with all the trimmings -- only at Denny's! (Greg Arnold, Herndon)

Three Days of the Condom: Love on a shoestring. (Edmund Conti, Raleigh)

See the rest of the winners (click on Week 855) at washingtonpost.com/styleinvitational. Or you can become a fan of "Washington Post Style" on Facebook (go to facebook.com/wapostyle ) and you'll get a link to the Invitational when it's posted. I hope you become regular readers and maybe even regular entrants.

Best,

The Empress of The Style Invitational

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