Grammar Girl here. I'm in Jan Fogarty. This week, we'll talk about Yoda's grammar,

and then we'll talk a bit more about Troops and Troopers. I've been seeing ads for the

Mandalorian and Grogu, which makes me think of Yoda. Unusual grammar he has. And people sometimes ask if he's

speaking real English, which is a fun question to consider. I mean, what makes English real?

Clearly, Yoda is communicating using English words, and we understand what he means, so in that sense, it's real.

Yoda makes words plural the way we normally make words plural and conjugates his verbs

the same way we do. The only difference between standard English and Yodish, as some websites

call it, is the word order.

Typically, standard English sentences follow a subject, verb, object order.

For example, we'd say Han Solo Diggs Princess Leia.

Han Solo is the subject, digs is the verb, and Princess Leia is the object.

Han Solo digs Princess Leia, subject, verb, object.

That's the typical pattern, but it's not unheard of for English speakers to deviate. For example, you could say something like,

she wants to fight and fight she will.

That fight she will part is just like Yodish, but we use it for

emphasis. Charles Carson, longtime editor of the journal American speech, told me way back in 2008,

that, quote, poets and lyricists frequently deviate from standard word order because of meter, rhyme, or aesthetics.

For example, over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go is Yoda-esque in its

construction. Yet English speakers sing it without a thought. With this ring, I. V. Wed, is another example of something that deviates

from the subject-verb-object construction, but that most people still consider real English.

Carson also said that although Yoda shifts around sentence elements, he doesn't do so randomly.

He tends to use object-subject-verb word order, as in Princess

...