In that form yes, but the active "drink water" which is kind of what we'd code like "drink(water)" is "wasser trinken". ... but yeah human languages aren't straightjacketed easily.

Yeah, wrong one, but there are many languages out there where the verb is always at the end (Latin, Japanese I think).

Yeah I thought the German ambiguity was SVO vs OVS, “Fritz fished fish” vs “Fish, fished Fritz”..

Inviting native German speakers to comment. Of course we anglophone-only HN geniuses can answer cesarb's question brilliantly on our own. But perhaps as a little sidebar we could also get your 'opinion'. Thanks! /s