Wednesday, August 07, 2002 AD The Truth About "The Washington Post Style Invitational" In a comment re yesterday's Sniglets post, Ellen contributed a list of words purported to be the winning entries in the Washington Post Style Invitational. Like Ellen, I've received this list by e-mail and passed it on to others, too. But this is what seemed fishy: Ellen's version (rather, in the version Ellen shared -- I'm not accusing Ellen of tampering with anything!) claimed to be the results of the 2001 contest. Trouble was, I was sure I'd seen this longer ago. I also thought it suspicious that the Post would print the "French" item on the list. So off I went a-Googling/Among the leaves so green.
Sho' 'nuff, things were not quite as reported. The Post ran the Style Invitational as a weekly feature, which ended in 1999 when the fellow in charge was sent off on a six-month overseas assignment. (Either he never came back or someone needs to send the Post a calendar.) The contest changed weekly as readers were invited to submit various sillinesses in an attempt to win various sillinesses.
