The information lives on

A blog I read regularly noted the Washington Post's Mensa* Invitational list of edited words.

A search ensued for the original article in the Washington Post so I could comment on the entertaining list (and tell you where to read the original).

NewsBank, a new to me resource, available through Chattahoochee Technical College seemed a good place to start for a newspaper article.

I selected United States, clicked on DC, selected Washington Post, entered Mensa - and did find in 2007 an article "Week 699: Our Greatest Hit"

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.

A Google search for "Washington Post's Mensa Invitational" turned up a number of bloggers commenting at various times (first one I noticed was in 2005 , then the same list but a different blog in 2006 and again most recently in 2009 ). The 2006 blog noted searching for the original source (and not finding it in the Washington Post's archives)!

Information lives on and on and on - check the sources and recheck and check again....


-kls

* Mensa was founded in England in 1946 by Roland Berrill, a barrister, and Dr. Lance Ware, a scientist and lawyer. They had the idea of forming a society for bright people, the only qualification for membership of which was a high IQ. The original aims were, as they are today, to create a society that is non-political and free from all racial or religious distinctions. The society welcomes people from every walk of life whose IQ is in the top 2% of the population, with the objective of enjoying each other's company and participating in a wide range of social and cultural activities.

The word "Mensa" means "table" in Latin. The name stands for a round-table society, where race, color, creed, national origin, age, politics, educational or social background are irrelevant.