Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
Yoda's syntax would be:
"Worry, Microsoft must."
That's the structure of his actual quote "Confer on you the level of Jedi Knight, the Council does."
I'm not great at diagramming, but in general Yoda's distinctive style uses:
"Prepositional phrase and object, subject verb."
I can't swear to the use of the comma but it fits his cadence.
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I thought about that, ApK. The three problems with practical usage (and one aesthetic quibble) are these:
1. The comma's unnecessary in a simple inversion like Forsooth's (cf. "In God we trust") unless the inverted language is also something else, such as an apposition. You can argue for its insertion for rhythmic reasons, but I think the real reason for it would be to emphasize the unusual syntax so that people could actually read the phrase.
2. The reference to the original quote becomes obscure if you leave out the pronoun.
3. Again, the better reason for the comma before
Microsoft in Forsooth's otherwise admirably succinct version ("Worry Microsoft must") would be this: because the syntax of the inversion seemed obscure without the pronoun. After all, the screenplay (the source for Yoda's quote) uses the pronoun and doesn't need a comma.
4. I find the alliteration annoying because the rhythm's off: A trochee followed by a trochee followed by a spondee (which
ends the line) sounds even worse when you emphasize the off-rhythm of the second trochee.* The line sounds much stronger with a trochee followed by an iamb, which is another reason that
Worry you must is so memorable.
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* I actually hear the line as two eighth notes, a triplet with an annoying accent on the third note, and an accented quarter note on the next strong beat. Unfortunately, conventional prosody uses feet, not beats, which means that it can't recognize single syllables as separate rhythmic units. If it could, I'd scan the line as a trochee, a dactyl and a stressed monosyllable.