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A quote from ACT english test passage:

And protect them she did: When workers went on strike, Jones secured food donations and temporary living arrangements. Where companies prevented the formation of unions, she fought for workers’ right to organize.

For starters, I am totally confused by the grammatical structure of the bold text, not like inversion or imperative and with two verbs not in aggreement with tense.

Furthermore, I think colon can only be used when the former sentence is complete; in this case, however, "she did" is obviously imcomplete: she did what? So I figure colon is imappropriate here.

Any explaination is sincerely appreciated !

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  • "She said she would protect them, and protect them she did" is a common construction in this form. It's for emphasis.
    – Matt Samuel
    Nov 13, 2020 at 2:22

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Inverted sentence structure is used here. Often, to emphasize a point, this is done, as well as in question. For example:

Kick the ball? Right past the goalie, he kicked it!

He is going home. [statement] -> Is he going home? [query]
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