Misunderstood, it is - why claims of ‘Yodaspeak’ are often wrong

Cryptic grammar is one of the most difficult elements of crosswords to get your head around, both as a setter and as a solver. It’s simple enough in principle: where there is wordplay, there should be a way to read a clue in a way that describes the construction of the solution, or tells the solver what to do.

A devious setter might misdirect you, of course. ‘Guards’ might appear to be a plural noun on the surface, but in fact operate as a verb indicating containment in the cryptic reading. But ultimately, the setter should say what they mean, even if it’s well-camouflaged.

Given the subtlety of the concept of cryptic grammar, it’s not surprising that it’s also an often-debated aspect of crosswords. One particular claim you might come across in blogs or comments is that a particular construction is ‘Yodaspeak’. This is usually a (slightly) critical comment - with the suggestion that the setter has taken a bit of a liberty with syntax for the sake of the clue.

For those not familiar with the little green chap, Yoda is a Jedi Master who speaks in an unusual way. For example, at one point in one of the Star Wars films he says the following: “Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.” This is, of course, not something you’d hear in regular English. So do crossword setters - and their editors - bend the rules like this?

I think grammar, both ‘regular’ and cryptic, is important, and shouldn’t be sacrificed for convenience or the sake of a good surface. But in this case, I think the claim is wide of the mark, and relies on a misunderstanding about what a setter is actually doing in a supposedly Yodaish clue.

For a simple example that might cause Yoda to be invoked, take: Old bloke eats beef (4). The wordplay element here is “Old bloke eats”, and the definition is “beef”. If this was providing a verbal phrase, and resolved to “Bloke eats old”, it would indeed be Yodaspeak.

But there is another way to understand this phrase, which is shown by this article you are reading. No, really – “this article you are reading” is an example of exactly what I'm talking about.

If Yoda were to say “this article you are reading”, he would mean “You are reading this article”. It's a verbal phrase, describing what is happening. But that's not the only way to read it - and not the way you read it just moments ago. You read “this article [that] you are reading”. It's a nounal phrase, and Yoda is nowhere to be seen.

This confusion is at the heart of claims that a setter has relied on Yodaspeak. It's not a Yoda-ish verbal phrase that we grudgingly accept through precedent – but an entirely regular nounal phrase. It’s further disguised by the missing ‘that’, but again, that’s very normal usage in English.

This is also why you won’t see a clue like “Old bloke eating beef”, at least in the stricter outlets. Unlike “Old bloke eats”, this would never be used as a nounal phrase in regular English - “Old that bloke eating” is not a valid English construction. So its only justification is a Yodaish use of language, or a sort of loose association, rather than a grammatical relationship, between the wordplay elements.

I doubt this will end the debate, and it is a tricky thing to disentangle, alongside all the other tricks a setter is using to tie a solver up in knots. But hopefully this article demonstrates that even a strict cryptogrammarian should think twice before raising an eyebrow and reaching for a Yoda comparison.