The Style Invitational is one of my favorite features in the Sunday Washington Post. It’s a humor contest, and the rules change from week to week. Entries are usually topical, mostly cynical, sometimes irreverent, surprisingly literate and almost always funny. This week’s rule: take the front part of a word hyphoneated in any Post story, combine it with the back part of a different word hyphenated in any Post story, and come up with a definition for the new word. A few of the entries:

Constitu-biguously: How the Supreme Court decides cases.

Tour-tle: An out-of-towner who walks really slowly in front of you (or drives, for that matter).

Prohib-icans: The religous right.

Hand-versation: Two Italians talking.

Con-pounded: How Arthur Andersen calculates interest.

Deter-dress: Burlap sack with “Lesbian Power” stenciled on it.

Inadequa-versity: Your “safe school.”

Got-Christ: Failed marketing campaign for Billy Graham crusades.

Bun-tween: Where a thong goes.

Nonprolfiera-nium: An element particularly useful in not making nuclear weapons.

And my personal favorite:

Gin-whispers: Hiccups.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 1st, 2002 at 6:27 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.