The Invitational Week 160: M*A*S*H-Ups
Hello. Inasmuch as we’re officially into Oscar season with today’s nominations, let us thank the Academy by making fun of its oeuvre with some compact double features. Consider:
A Clockwork Dick: A documentary about the predictably unpredictable rants, threats, insults, and megalomaniacal preening by Donald J. Trump.
See what we did there? A mashup! You know, as in M*A*S*H (1970) and Up (2009). For Invitational Week 160: Combine any two movie titles into a new one with a modern story, as in the above mash of A Clockwork Orange (1972) and Moby Dick (1956).
The titles don’t need to be combined in a specific way, just as long as a reader would recognize both movie titles in your new one. The plot must be a current one, playing off recent events and/or trends in politics, business, entertainment, etc. Like these inking entries — still timely — from earlier contests:
Eight Men Out of Africa: U.S. immigration officials set new entry quotas. (Mark Raffman, 2017)
8½ Goodfellas: As climate change causes water to recede in the New Jersey Meadowlands, police make some gruesome discoveries. (Mark Turco, 2022)
Formatting your entries: Begin each entry only with the title of the movie, and follow it on the same line with the description, as in the examples above; i.e., don’t press Enter until you’re starting another entry.
Deadline is Saturday, Jan. 31, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Feb. 5. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form.
Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyurl.com/inv-form-160.
This week’s winner gets this little gadget: You put an unopened egg in it, you pull the spinner, and it whisks the egg before you even crack the shell. Just think of going, say, to Grandma’s house, discreetly running all her eggs through this baby, then putting them back in the carton. Donated by Dave Prevar, who has donated something like 140 prizes to us, and has won them back only rarely.
A World of HERT: The ‘THRE’ neologisms from Week 158
We celebrated The Gene Pool’s third anniversary with Invitational Week 158, the twenty-second of our Tour de Fours contests. In a TdeF, we give a block of four letters — in this case THRE — and ask you to make up new words or phrases that incorporate that block, in any of its twenty-four permutations.
Third runner-up:
Rethpect!: The theme song of the American Association of Lispers. (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)
Second runner-up:
Ye Throate of Deepnesse: Famed Elizabethan-era whistleblower. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
First runner-up:
Alexander the Saurus: An ancient ruler who was great, grand, mighty, glorious, and magnificent. (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)
And the winner of the op-art floor mat that looks as if you’re about to fall into a tunnel:
Department of War Ethics Office: A broom closet in the Pentagon basement. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)
And now the Invitational Gene Pool Gene Poll:
(As usual, if you think one or more of the honorable mentions were better, yell at us in the Comments.)
LessER THoughts: Honorable mentions
Jack the Ribber: Great name for a London-based standup comic. “Jack the Ribber killed last night at the East End Comedy Carnival.” (Chris Doyle, Warminster, Pa.)
After hello: The point at which you regret having agreed to a blind date. (Judy Freed, Philadelphia)
Ther: According to Merriam-Webster’s 2050 edition, this word replaces the archaic terms “there,” “their,” and “they’re.” (Lee Graham, Columbia, S.C.)
The Trump Fairy: Instead of money under your pillow, he leaves a lowball settlement offer. (Jesse Frankovich)
A-holier-than-thou: How JD Vance and Marco Rubio are acting to compete for Trump’s approval. (Chris Doyle)
Therm donor: Someone to keep you warm at night. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)
Antimatterhorn: A deep crater in Switzerland. (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)
Behemoth rectum: Even in a town of assholes, some deserve this grander title. (Gary Crockett)
Bensonhertz: A shady car rental service run by a guy named Louie. “Just name the car, and we’ll snatch it. I mean, have it ready for you.” (Leif Picoult)
Cat Rehab: Pet behavior clinic with a success rate of 0.001 percent. (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)
Desserthole: A more inclusive, respectful term used in telling someone to shut up, since not everyone likes pie. (Jesse Frankovich)
Berth control: Deciding whose dinghy gets to dock in which port, if it must be covered, if seamen may disembark, and when to pull out. (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)
Fright recorders: ICE body cams. (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)
Botherall: Not merely bothersome. (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)
Hereafterthoughts: What Hamlet had. (Tom Witte)
Jethrospective: Genre of JD Vance’s memoir of transformation from hillbilly to Vice President. (Now you know what the “J” really stands for.) (Terri Berg Smith, Rockville, Md.)
Lower the broom: To demand that your significant other stop shirking on the housework. (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)
Lil Nazareth: A Christian rapper who topped the charts with “Old Town Road to Damascus.” (Chris Doyle)
Theramos: A heavily hyped bottle that turned out not to hold water. (Duncan Stevens)
Farthex: The room in a church where you go if you need to rip one during the service. (Jeff Hazle, San Antonio, Tex.)
Frankfurther: A two-foot-long hot dog. (Chris Doyle)
Mobster Thermidor: The meal served to Mafia snitches before they sleep with the shellfishes. (Chris Doyle)
Ay, there’s the rib: What Adam said upon meeting Eve. (Chris Doyle)
Ovanighter: A weekend getaway at the ideal time to try for conception. (Tom Witte)
Peckerthang: Men’s irrational pride in their member-ship. (Dave Prevar, Annapolis, Md.)
Pervert Hell: Where Jeffrey Epstein is. (Neil Kurland, Elkridge, Md.)
Velotheraptor: Vicious dinosaur species noted for its missing front teeth. (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)
Shoulderthong: That thing Borat wore. (Jesse Frankovich)
The Ether Bunny: Your benevolent anesthesiologist. (Beverley Sharp)
Thermospat: A heated disagreement between spouses regarding the indoor temperature. (Beverley Sharp)
Threeocracy: Government by me, myself, and I. — DJT (Jesse Frankovich)
Tush terrain: The sidewalk your neighbor didn’t bother to salt after the snowstorm. (Judy Freed)
Uberthug: Kiefer Sutherland, allegedly. (Pam Shermeyer)
Ur Ethra: Ancient civilization that died out from UTIs. (Duncan Stevens)
Magahertz: A wavelength on the far right of the spectrum — like D.C.’s conservative WMAL-FM, broadcasting at 105.9 magahertz. (Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.; Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)
And Last: Mother of All Entries: The best Your Mama joke of the week. (Eric Nelkin, Silver Spring, Md.)
And Even Laster: [Insert here]: I’m tired. Make up your own damn word. (Jesse Frankovich)
The headline “A World of HERT” was submitted by both Jesse Frankovich and Kevin Dopart; Gary Crockett wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.
Still running — deadline Saturday, Jan. 24, at 9 p.m. ET: Our contest to write new words for any of eight “Speed Bump” cartoons — and their creator Dave Coverly will help judge. Click on “read full story” below for details.
Now we seamlessly segue into the Mailbag portion of The Gene Pool, in which Gene responds to your questions and observations. Today’s mailbag is mostly in response to Gene’s call, on the weekend, for examples of the unfortunately funny misuses of words that you may have encountered — or participated in creating.
Send your new Questions and Observations here for a future Gene Pool:
Questions and Observations Here
And last, if you have not already done so, please consider becoming a paying subscriber to The Gene Pool. It is pretty cheap (still just $5 a month or $50 a year), and it lets you enter the Invitational, rather than just reading the results every week and sourly deciding you would have done better and then kicking the dog.
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This is Gene: To those responding to yesterday’s poll and felt the “Gaping Hole” headline was deliberate: It was not.
I can assure you of that. At a big newspaper, one fucks around with the published product only at the risk of one’s job. You don’t sneak in an offensive joke. I am a saboteur, by nature, and I never would have done that. And had I been a top editor, I would have fired the writer/editor who did. I refer you to this fabulous story by Clyde Haberman, a contemporary of mine, father of the NYT’s Maggie Haberman, about the day he was fired by the New York Times. And how they were right to do so.
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Q: Regarding your takedown of the Times Spelling Bee: I used to keep a list of words unfairly rejected by Spelling Bee, and was going to send them all in and complain when the list got to 100. By that point I decided that deciding what words should be included is an impossible task, and so I didn’t send them in. There will always be words that some people think are common and others don’t. When I stopped updating the list, back in September 2021, it had 144 words, plus another 7 that were no longer rejected. I still think it would be fun to make a crossword puzzle containing only rejected Spelling Bee words.
— Steve Langer
A: I love that idea. I will actually submit it to Will Shortz, the Times crossword editor. And I will report back.
I, too, used to collect words the Bee rejected. The most ridiculous – still a non-word to this very day – is “naphtha.” They are ignoramuses on science and medicine.
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Q: I used to work as an orthopedic technician at a hospital in Baltimore. One evening a young woman came to the hospital’s ER with an obviously injured wrist. The resident on call had her x-rayed, and examined the injury. He declared that she had fractured a bone in the wrist, and would need a cast. He instructed me to apply the cast. When she expressed concern that the cast would keep her from being able to type (she was employed as a secretary in the days of electric typewriters), the resident said, “Well, I guess you’re going to have to be a hunt-n-pecker for a while.” Her eyes went wide, but the resident simply continued to fill in her chart, oblivious to anything amiss. When she left, I pointed out the potential alternative interpretation of his comment, and to his credit he was horrified at himself. – Larry Gray
A: Excellent.
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Q: I was a copy editing intern at a midsize daily. One night, building a page, I grabbed a short story off the AP wire about a model-turned-YouTube celebrity who had a new TV show. To fill space, I added a photo of her posing with other models. I dashed off a headline above it all and called it good. I didn’t consider the total effect until I saw it in print. Above a line of well-endowed women, my headline proclaimed, “From Internet Stardom to Boob Tube.”
A: Also excellent. I once had to go to a copy editor at The Washington Post, an excellent, erudite editor, and inform her she had to change a headline she had just written because she used something like the following construction: “Warren Beatty, actor cum lothario….” She didn’t understand what I was talking about, saw nothing wrong with “cum,” and I didn’t want to be too specific, so I just said, “please, just change it.” She did. Rachel once saved the Post from a headline, written by a boomer, that used the word “taint” in an unfortunately misconstrue-able manner.
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Q: This here is one of my favorites, maybe because I was a college faculty member and grew up in Queens.
A: One of my favorite misstep headlines of all time: “Ted Bundy beats latest date with chair.”
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That’s it for today.