“Him hit I” is totally incorrect unless your name is Yoda.

As I said, English is mostly case-free. But, there are leftovers from the old case system. That’s why we have “I”, “me”, “mine” and “my”. And why we have “you”, “yours” and “your”. And why we have “he”, “him”, and “his”, and “we”, “us”, “ours” and “our”. In each of these groups, it’s really the same word, just in different forms- different cases. So, part of learning English is learning a case system, even though it’s only used for a handful of words.
And English doesn’t even get the positive advantages from its case system. Even in a sentence entirely using cased words, like “I hit him”, word order is still important– “Him hit I” is totally incorrect unless your name is Yoda.

Odessa Dawn said:

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As I said, English is mostly case-free. But, there are leftovers from the old case system. That’s why we have “I”, “me”, “mine” and “my”. And why we have “you”, “yours” and “your”. And why we have “he”, “him”, and “his”, and “we”, “us”, “ours” and “our”. In each of these groups, it’s really the same word, just in different forms- different cases. So, part of learning English is learning a case system, even though it’s only used for a handful of words.
And English doesn’t even get the positive advantages from its case system. Even in a sentence entirely using cased words, like “I hit him”, word order is still important– “Him hit I” is totally incorrect unless your name is Yoda.

Does "Unless your name is Yoda" imply unless you feel that you don’t understand? Or this is unforgivable mistake unless you are not familiar with English grammar rule?
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Yoda was a character in a movie named "Star Wars". He was a short, human-like, alien who taught the main character how to become a warrior. Yoda spoke such phrase as "Hit him I". The writer is saying that word order is important, unless you are Yoda.

Yoda would never have said "Him hit I"!

Yoda's version of "He hit me" would probably have been "Hmmm, hit by him I was" or "Hmmm, hit me he did".

Yoda had funny word order, but was not ambiguous- Him hit I is so mixed up it's unclear who hit whom.

emsr2d2 said:

Yoda would never have said "Him hit I"!

Yoda's version of "He hit me" would probably have been "Hmmm, hit by him I was" or "Hmmm, hit me he did".

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Indeed - or "Hit him, I did. Needed, it was. Improved was his behavior afterwards.

This article you have been reading has now had three things that natives say is simply not so. It seems that the writer was trying to be too clever by half.