The Invitational Week 16: Pun for the Roses

Our renowned horse name 'breeding' contest returns! Plus 'dongdinging,' 'Whoteenth' and other winning neologisms.

The Invitational has been running its horse name contest almost as long as the Kentucky Derby’s been around. Okay, since 1995, anyway. Furlong, long time. (Cigarette advertisement from the Library of Congress collection)

NOTE: Gene is recovering from a nasty bug that hit him on Wednesday, so he’s delaying his Gene Pool Q&A’s to Friday, April 21, at noon ET. So it’s just Pat and The Invitational today. You can still ask the Empress questions today and do your pontificatin’ in the comments at the bottom of the web page. But for Gene to answer questions, send them the usual way and he’ll deal with them on Friday.

If you’re reading this on an email, you can comment by going to the Gene Pool web page and clicking on “The Invitational Week 16.” Now, on to Our Biggest Contest.

But first, send in questions which will be answered tomorrow!

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“Breed” Armstrong with Power in Numbers and name the foal Lance A Lot 

Vigorish x Low Expectations = Vigorish-ish

Sgt. Pepper x Low Expectations = Norwegian Wouldn’t

It was The Style Invitational’s top-drawing contest in almost every one of its 28 years at The Washington Post, deluging the Czar and then the Empress with thousands of puns, and hundreds of good ones. Based on the common practice of giving racehorses names that reflect the name of either or both parents — Classic Catch is the offspring of Classic Empire and Moon Catcher — our annual challenge ramps up the wit.

This week: At the bottom of this page (and also  at this link or type in bit.ly/invite-horses-2023) is a list of 100 of the almost 400 horses nominated for the 2023 Triple Crown races: the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. “Breed” any two names and name the “foal” to humorously play off both parents’ names, as in the examples above. (Yes, we know almost all the horses are male. We do not care. They are They to us.)

As in thoroughbred racing, a name may not exceed 18 characters including spaces, but those characters may include punctuation and numerals. You may run words together to save space, but we strongly favor names that are easy to read (capitalizing the individual words helps).  DON’T name a foal a third name right from the list; such an entry never gets ink.

If you’re not familiar with our foal name contest, scroll through some previous winners at the Losers’ Master Contest List containing all 1,534 Invitationals; click on the “theme filter” box at the top and select, duh, “horses.” Quick peek: Here are the top three from 2022:
Smarten Up x Simplification = Dumben Down (Gary Crockett)
Bloodline x Dean’s List = IV League (Craig Dykstra)
Absolute Ruler x We the People = I the People (John O’Byrne)

Please write entries in the A x B = C format of the examples above so that the Empress and especially her longtime volunteer sorter, Loser Jonathan Hardis, can sort the entries by horse name.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to bit.ly/inv-form-16.

Deadline is 4 p.m. ET Saturday, April 29. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, May 4, right before Kentucky Derby weekend. Remember that you do have to be a Gene Pool subscriber to play this year, but you can be a cheapo and pony up (as it were) for just a month for $5 — which will also get you the follow-up “grandfoals” contest, when you “breed” the inking foal names from this week’s contest.

This week’s winner gets, ever so appropriately, a nice pair of tube socks that look like a horse’s hoofs (except when you actually put human feet in them); the sole shows a real bottom of a hoof, complete with printed horseshoe. From our Premier Collection of Prizes That Fit in a Flat Envelope.

Funnycombs: Spelling Bee Neologisms from Week 14

In Week 14 we presented 20 seven-letter “hives” from old editions of the New York Times’s Spelling Bee word-find game, and asked you to make up your own new words and phrases and describe them. You could use the letters more than once, and had to include the first letter of the set (in the center in the actual game).

Third runner-up: YACGINR > NAYCAY:  A week at the beach with two-year-old twins. (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)  

Second runner-up: PADINOT > ATTN. POOPTOP:  When you want to start your resignation  letter “Dear Shithead” but want to maintain proper office decorum. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)    

First runner-up: FAELMOT > FELLATE ME ELMO:   A plush doll that never made any headway in the market. (Jon Carter, Fredericksburg, Va.; Kevin Dopart, Washington D.C.) 

And the winner of the twelve fake mustaches: FAELMOT > FEMALOT: A law was made a distant moon ago here/ Your flashes may be warm , but never hot/ And menstrual cramps won't ever lay you low here/ In Femalot! (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore) 

NEOLOGISMS > GLOOMINESS: Honorable Mentions

From FAELMOT: EFF FLA: Unofficial motto of the other forty-nine states. (Duncan Stevens) 

— FAT ME:  How an honest person orders two Big Macs. (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.) 

— FATTOO:  what that cute little butterfly on your skinny 18-year-old butt will become twenty years and fifty pounds later. (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines) 

— FETAL MOTEL: In Florida, a legal term for “woman.” (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

From LCEMOPT: McPELLET: Two dehydrated patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, all in a sesame seed pill.  (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.) 

— POE MOTEL: “I can only give this place one star. Between the thumping under the floorboards and constant rapping on the door, I was up all night!” (Jon Carter)

From ADLMNTY : DATA DAM: All the useless knowledge stored in the brain that prevents a person from remembering birthdays, anniversaries, and the name of “that guy who was in that movie with the woman who used to be in that TV show. You know the one…”  (Lee Graham, Reston, Va.) 

— MAN-A-DAY MAMA:  She’s ugly and really dumb too, but you should still call her. (Mark Raffman)

— MAN MALL: A shopping center focused on the stereotypical American male. “Want to come with me to the man mall? They just opened a Couch, Porn & Beer store!” (Neal Starkman, Seattle) 

 From OEHMNTW: WHOTEENTH:  June 19 in Florida. (Jon Carter) 

— WENT OHM: The pithy epitaph on the tombstone of an incompetent electrician. (Barbara Turner, Takoma Park, Md.)

— WHOMTOWN: The Grinch’s next target: the snooty village on the other side of the mountain. (Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.)

— OHMTOWN:  Cradle of the Resistance. (Frank Mann, Washington, D.C.)

— ‘NOT WHO – WHOM’ WOMEN: Your sentence-diagramming high school English teachers. (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)

From CABEIMN: McCAA:  A Scottish parrot.  (Jeff Shirley, Richmond, Va.) 

From DCGINOT: GODOTING:  Waiting for something that may never come. “We’re godoting for Merrick Garland to indict him already.” (Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.)

— DONGDINGING: Zipping up too quickly at the urinal. (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

From EABCHLW: LECH LEECH:  Prince Andrew or other guests at Jeffrey Epstein’s island (Mark Raffman)

From TABIMNO: BAMBI ATOM: What’s left of the deer after hunting with an AR-15. (Sam Mertens)

—  IAMBITION: With measured steps that stressed what we both knew/ I reached my goal by walking over you. (Kevin Dopart)

From TAILMOP: POTATO POP: Soviet-era alternative to decadent Western colas. (Sam Mertens) 

— POTATOMATO: A hybrid source of fries that already taste like ketchup. (David Garratt, Silver City, N.M.; Jesse Frankovich)  

From GAEFLOP: GAFFELE (n., Yiddish): Just a minor faux pas.  “Oops, I guess I made a little gaffele when I asked Shirley Moskowitz’s daughter when the baby was due.  But oy, has that girl gotten heavy!”  (Sarah Walsh, Rockville, Md.)

— POLOLOGOPEOPLE: “Chad, I believe you know Hadley. And here are Skip, Kip, Chip, and Missy.” (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)

From LACHINO: ALCOAHOLIC: Someone who won’t take off his tinfoil hat. “He was such an Alcoaholic that he wouldn’t even wear a MAGA cap.” (Kevin Dopart)

From LBEFINX: EFFIBLE ELF:  Tinder handle of Ernie Keebler. (Jon Carter)

From MBEILOZ: BEZOMOBILE: An investment vehicle that goes from zero to 150 billion in thirty years. (Rob Cohen)

— ZOOMBIE: What a full day of virtual meetings turns you into. (Jesse Frankovich; Jonathan Jensen; Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

From TACILMN: TICTACTICAL: Demonstrating a calculated level of misunderstanding. “It’s not assault if you use a breath mint first.” (Frank Osen; Mark Raffman)

From YACGINR: YAGINA: The thing ya’ll got that Republicans are itching to control. (Frank Mann)  

And Last: GAEFLOP > GAGFLOP:  The sound of an Invitational entry as it bites the dust. (Beverley Sharp)

And Even Laster:  TAILMOP > POOPTIMAL:  How the Czar describes the best possible Invitational entry. (Duncan Stevens)

The headline “Funnycombs” was submitted by both Jesse Frankovich and Jon Carter; Kyle Hendrickson wrote the honorable-mentions subhead. 

PARTY WITH GENE, PAT & THE LOSERS:
The Flushies awards/potluck/songfest, Saturday afternoon, May 20, Potomac, Md.

Even before there was an Invitational horse name contest, there was a community of Invite contestants: “Officially” they’re the Not Ready for the Algonquin Roundtable Society (NRARS); these days they’re the Losers. And for the 27th year, they’ll be gathering for the Flushies, an event to “honor” the Loser of the Year, eat, schmooze, sing parodies, etc. For the third year running, it’s a potluck in the backyard of Loser Steve Leifer in Potomac, Md. As always, the Empress will be there — and this time the Czar also plans to attend, in an extremely rare appearance at a Loser function; I believe his last one was a sendoff party in 2004.
We’ll send out an email invitation and online sign-up form in the next week or so; if you’d like to get one (and weren’t on the mailing lists for last year’s parties), email Loser Fun Guy Kyle Hendrickson at BrunchOfLosers@gmail.com and he’ll add your name. (If we don’t know you, the Empress might chat you up first to make sure you’re a Gene Pool member or otherwise an Invite fan.)

Still running – deadline 4 p.m. Saturday, April 22: Our Week 15 Al Jaffee memorial contest for Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. Click here or type in bit.ly/inv-week-14. 

Banter and share humor with the Losers and the Empress in the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook; join (tell them you came from The Gene Pool) and the Devs will anagram your name every which way. And see more than 1,000 classic Invite entries in graphic form, also on FB, at Style Invitational Ink of the Day.

You need to be a paid subscriber to The Gene Pool to enter the Invitational. Sign up (just $5/month or $50/year for an Invitational plus a second Gene column every week) at GeneWeingarten.substack.com.

Remember to come back Friday, April 21, at noon ET, for The Gene Pool With Actual Gene. Click here to ask him a question. (Today, you can use the comment thread below.)

This year’s horses for Week 16  

Below are 100 of the almost 400 horses nominated for this year’s Triple Crown races.  About a quarter of them are the horses most likely to run in the Kentucky Derby; we chose the rest on the hunch that they’d be good for this contest.  You must be a paid subscriber,  either for a month ($5, which includes this contest plus the “grandfoals” sequel) or for the year ($50 — c’mon, pony up. So to speak).
  The entry form is here.
    

Aaron
Accident
Acoustic Ave
Alternate Reality
Angel of Empire
Arabian Lion
Armstrong 
Auguste Rodin
Banishing
Ben Franklin
Be Punctual
Blazing Sevens
Blocked
B Minor 
Candidate
Chase the Chaos
Circling the Drain
Classic Catch
Clear the Air
Confidence Game
Congruent
Continuar
Curly Larry and Mo
Cyclone Mischief 
Derma Sotogake
Disarm 
Dr. Kraft
Dreamlike
Eastbound
Escalation
Expect More
Eye Witness
Fleet Feet
Flipper
Forte
Game Change
Gandolfini
General Banker
Giant Mischief
Greenland 
Hard to Figure
Hit Show 
Honed
Hoosier Philly
I Don’t Get It
Infinite Series
Instant Coffee
Ironsides
Jace’s Road
Jackstown
Justice Department
Kangaroo Court
King Russell
Kingsbarns
Lap Star
Litigate
Lord Miles
Love Me Not
Low Expectations
Mage
Major Dude
Meteorite
Miracle Worker
Miranda Rights
Mount Up
Mr. Peeks
Noble Style
Point Proven
Post Time
Power in Numbers
Practical Move
Promise Me a Ride
Protege
Raise Cain
Ready Shakespeare
Reincarnate
Ride Up
Rocket Can
Rocking Rocket
Runandscore
Secret Threat
Sensical
Sgt. Pepper
Skinner
Stormy Entry
Sully
Sun Thunder
Tapit Trice
Ten Days Later
Theismann
There Be Dragons
Top Recruit
Turbo
Two Phil’s
Verifying 
Victory Formation
Vigorish
Wild On Ice
Work Order
Yellow Brick