In April 2006, a poster at VegSource.com quoted a kenwheaton.blogspot.com article that no longer exists anywhere (not even the Wayback Machine), from Monday, November 21, 2005, and called “As I Please”:

This list is kind of funny, but it bugged me. I could have sworn I’d seen it before. Besides, I doubt that Mensa would lend its name to an “invitational,” especially one open to newspaper readers. Also, even if it were a Mensa contest, obviously a non-member wrote it.

“This year’s 2005 winner.” As opposed to next year’s 2005 winner? Or last year’s?

“Arachnoleptic fit”? How many letters are we changing again? Caterpallor? Two letters changed in that one. And I’m pretty sure colors are usually classified as adjectives. There are others, but why bother.

The fact is, there is no such thing as a Washington Post Mensa Invitational. A search of the Washington Post site indicates as much. Sadly, Snopes.com was of no help. But a Factiva search shows that a few of these words appeared in a Washington Post Style Invitational back in August 2, 1998. One of my favorites, “intaxication,” appears again in the Post in the April 16, 2003 Bridge column.

(The Style Invitational (or rather “The Stool Invitational”) for August 2, 1998, which was Week 281, was called “Calculate the Odds”.)

There was also an interesting post in October 2006 on rosswriting.blogspot.com called ‘”Giving Credit Where It’s Due” Dept.’

And there was a post on Sugar & Spice in May 2007 debunking it as well.

But, unfortunately, most of the results were from people perpetuating the myth by posting it without any research on their blogs. Bit disappointing, that.