Monday, January 26, 2009

Washington Post's Mensa Invitational Contest and Alternative Meanings for Common Words

(Courtesy of Eileen Abel)

HERE IS THE WASHINGTON POST'S MENSA INVITATIONAL CONTEST WHICH ONCE AGAIN ASKED READERS TO TAKE ANY WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY, ALTER IT BY ADDING, SUBTRACTING, OR CHANGING ONLY ONE LETTER, AND SUPPLY A NEW DEFINITION.


HERE ARE THE WINNERS:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation : Belief that one will come back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The subs tance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11 . Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right?20And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter whenn they come at you rapidly.

15. A rachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.


THE WASHINGTON POST HAS ALSO PUBLISHED THE WINNING SUBMISSIONS TO ITS YEARLY CONTEST, IN WHICH READERS ARE ASKED TO SUPPLY ALTERNATE MEANINGS FOR COMMON WORDS... AND THE WINNERS ARE:

1. coffee, n. the person u pon whom one coughs.

2. flabbergasted, adj. appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. abdicate, v. to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. esplanade, v. to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. willy-nilly, adj. impotent.

6. negligent, adj. absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. lymph, v. to walk with a lisp.

8. gargoyle, n. olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. flatulence, n. emergency vehi cle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. balderdash, n. a rapidly receding hairline.

11. testicle, n. a humorous question on an exam.

12. rectitude, n. the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. pokemon , n. a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. oyster, n. a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. the belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. circumvent, n. an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hillarilious! (Anything that can make Mrs. Clinton laugh!)

Anonymous said...

Here's one more -

MENSA: MALE MENSTURATION

Michael said...

Dear Anonymous,

Mensa is great, I plan on using it!

jant10 said...

Seems to me more than one letter was changed in Caterpallor...

Michael said...

jant10,

and...?

jant10 said...

Thivai Abhor,

And I quote from the 'rules' in the first paragraph..."ALTER IT BY ADDING, SUBTRACTING, OR CHANGING ONLY ONE LETTER, AND SUPPLY A NEW DEFINITION."

jant10

Michael said...

thus more evidence why newspapers will die... thanks jant10 for catching it...

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised they took "frisbeetarianism" - that dates back to an old George Carlin routine.

elainesb said...

My humble entry : massturbation: a load of wankers.

Anonymous said...

for the top list:
wambulance (n): the vehicle which is sent to relieve the public of whiney people

Anonymous said...

conflatulations

Compliment given to someone who has passed gas in a very loud manner.

Anonymous said...

Clever and funny, but there's no such thing as the Washington Post Mensa Invitational. This is a myth spread by e-mail. Don't believe me? Try searching for the genuine source.

Spider42 said...

I always enjoy reading these.. great for making me chuckle and laugh heartily.

nice blog by the way, came across it purely by chance but looks promising.

Cheers..

Susanna said...

I am not a belly-laugh-out-loud-kind a person, but this did it! Thanks, it made my day.

Chris said...

Very clever!

Anonymous said...

Malodious (adj.) : Having a bad sound.

(Melodious + malodorous)

Anonymous said...

My humble contribution:

Inflatuation: irrational attraction to small breasted women

Anonymous said...

Laburnam - British sheep in France

Unknown said...

Sushit - what comes out of you after you have eaten sushi

Anonymous said...

I actually found it on the Washington Post website but was dated january 28, 2007. It is now called Change a Little, Change a Lot

Anonymous said...

it was called the Style Invitational back then....

Pat Myers said...

As some of the commenters noted above, no, there isn't actually a Washington Post "Mensa Invitational" contest. BUT!

he Washington Post does have a wonderfully clever humor contest called The STYLE Invitational. And two Invitational contests from 1998 are the sources 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 -- as one commenter noted above -- "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.

The most recent results (Jan. 30, 2010) were for humorous poems about people who died last year. Like this one:

Because the AmEx card's their fave,
They're here today to tout it.
The diggers of Karl Malden's grave
Just won't heave loam without it. (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.)

Before that, the contest was for
made-up homonyms or homophones. Among the winners:

Ho-maid: The role of a traditional wife.

Hi-deaf TV: Commercials.

S-cargo: Snail mail.

You can see links to these contests and dozens of earlier ones 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

Unknown said...

menssiah - the first one of your girlfriends to remind you that its time to buy tampons.

Unknown said...

povetry - 1. What a English major writes when he can't find a job

Unknown said...

I found it very funny but thought it should have been titled NEOLOJISM, defined as f*****g around with new words.