This week I have the winners of the National Grammar Day High-Coo Contest.

They're great, they're always great, and a meaty middle with tips for coming up with

story ideas.

And now, onto High-Coo.

For the last few years, the American Copy Editor's Society has held a High-Coo Contest on Twitter

for National Grammar Day, and I run the winners in my podcast because it's fun.

Here's the winner from 2013, which is still one of my favorites.

It's by Erika O'Crent, who is a linguist and author of In the Land of Invented Languages.

I am an error, and I will reveal myself after you press send.

There's a little bit of a funny backstory behind the High-Coo Contest because I had wanted

to do a High-Coo Contest years ago, and I happened to be at a writing retreat within a

accomplished, serious High-Coo poet.

I mean, someone who had published books of real High-Coo, and I mentioned the idea to him,

and he was horrified.

Politely horrified, but he practically begged me not to do it.

It turns out that what most of us learning grade school about High-Coo is incredibly simplistic,

and is sometimes considered almost in a front to people who take their High-Coo seriously.

From what I read afterward, a traditional High-Coo is almost always about nature, and should

also include some kind of juxtaposition.

In that 575 syllable pattern many of us learned, isn't even considered a hard and fast

rule.

So I was scared off the idea of running an ongoing grammar High-Coo Contest, but then

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