joyce pellino crane

File this under “The Best Laugh of My Week”

This landed in my inbox today. It was identified as the Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational, which asks readers to take any word from the dictionary,  alter it by adding,  subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply  a new definition.

But a quick Google search revealed that the Post takes no credit for it. On January 28, 2007, a WP blog post with the byline “The Empress” said the following:

“It still hasn’t stopped: With mystifying regularity, we continue to receive (often passed through several mailboxes at The Post) unsolicited entries to what’s sometimes called the “Mensa Invitational,” and most recently “Change a Letter, Change a Lot”: The results of Week 271 have continued to orbit in cyberspace for almost 10 years, picking up forwarders’ own efforts along the way. We hope these lost souls find us this week. This week’s contest: Take a word, term or name that begins with E, F, G or H; add one letter, subtract one letter, replace one letter or transpose two letters; and define the new word, as in the examples above, which got ink in 1998 and 2003.

I say, regardless of where it originated, it’s a hoot. Enjoy!

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. Intaxicaton: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until

you  realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a  hillbilly.

5. 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.

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? And 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 when

they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic 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 upon 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 vehicle 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

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