In the spirit of the Washington Post Style Invitational, here’s your chance to demonstrate your creativity. The Style Invitational is a humor contest that appears weekly in the Style section of the Sunday Washington Post. The contest changes each week, and often asks readers to submit captions for photos, invent new definitions for existing words or come up with new words of their own.

One contest asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. For example, one of my favorites was Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly. Another was Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an ass.

With a nod to S.I.’s head judge, the Empress, here’s the first (and quite possibly the last) Progressive Distributor Style Invitational. Take any word pertaining to the distribution industry and change it by adding, subtracting or replacing only one letter, then provide a definition for the word you’ve created. I’ve included a few of my own ideas below to get you started. Submit your entry to me at rvurva@milomediapub.com with the words “Style invitational” in the subject line. The best entries will be published next issue.

Disributors: Customers who expect distributor salespeople to give up body parts in order to get a lower price.
Purchaste agent: A buyer with unimpeachable ethics. Extremely rare.
Malufacturer: The manufacturer you suspect is up to no good but you just can't prove it.
Suppliars: Manufacturers who will say anything to get an order.
Integrafted supplier: An integrator with his nose so far up the customer’s butt he’ll never lose the account.
Salesmat: The type of manager salespeople walk all over.
Waremouse: An employee who steals inventory from the stockroom shelves in the dead of night.

This editorial appeared in the September/October 2007 issue of Progressive Distributor magazine. Copyright 2007.