From Newsgroup: alt.usage.english


My Scottish geography teacher used to use the expression "believe you
me" a lot, so it has left a mark on me. The simpler 'believe me' is
just as good, but it has less of an emphasis to it.

I note that it is a far less used expression (see NGram) compared to the simpler version, even if it has entered many dictionaries, e.g. Collinsdictionary.com

<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=believe+you+me%2C+believe+me&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3>


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From Newsgroup: alt.usage.english

In article <ni1eblFj6qU1@mid.individual.net>, occam <occam@nowhere.nix> wrote:

My Scottish geography teacher used to use the expression "believe you
me" a lot, so it has left a mark on me. The simpler 'believe me' is
just as good, but it has less of an emphasis to it.

I note that it is a far less used expression (see NGram) compared to the >simpler version, even if it has entered many dictionaries, e.g. >Collinsdictionary.com

<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=believe+you+me%2C+believe+me&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3>

Many occurrences of the bigram "believe me" are likely to be in quite
different contexts from those in which the expression "believe you me"
is used.

-- Richard
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From Newsgroup: alt.usage.english

On Tue, 29 Sep 2026 10:34:59 -0000 (UTC), richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk
(Richard Tobin) wrote:

In article <ni1eblFj6qU1@mid.individual.net>, occam <occam@nowhere.nix> wrote:

My Scottish geography teacher used to use the expression "believe you
me" a lot, so it has left a mark on me. The simpler 'believe me' is
just as good, but it has less of an emphasis to it.

I note that it is a far less used expression (see NGram) compared to the >>simpler version, even if it has entered many dictionaries, e.g. >>Collinsdictionary.com

<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=believe+you+me%2C+believe+me&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3>

Many occurrences of the bigram "believe me" are likely to be in quite >different contexts from those in which the expression "believe you me"
is used.

Ngram has the option to specify that the phrase is the beginning of a
sentence, using _START_ .

"Believe you me" starts lower and hits 1 to 3% during the 20th
century. It looks like a flat line if you ask for counts instead of
the ratio.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=_START_+Believe+you+me%2F+_START_+Believe+me&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3
--
Rich Ulrich
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From Newsgroup: alt.usage.english

In article <blknbldv48gh2gtnj2742p91eof4lco4ta@4ax.com>,
Rich Ulrich <rich.ulrich@comcast.net> wrote:

Ngram has the option to specify that the phrase is the beginning of a >sentence, using _START_ .

I wou expect it more at the end of a sentence. But I'm not disputing
that "believe me" is more common, just pointing out that it's hard to
find the right comparison.

-- Richard
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From Newsgroup: alt.usage.english

Le 29/09/2026 |a 10:23, occam a |-crit :

My Scottish geography teacher used to use the expression "believe you
me" a lot, so it has left a mark on me. The simpler 'believe me' is
just as good, but it has less of an emphasis to it. [...]

It's a shame you didn't have Victor Meldrew in your class.

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From Newsgroup: alt.usage.english

On Tue, 29 Sep 2026 15:31:03 -0000 (UTC), richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk
(Richard Tobin) wrote:

In article <blknbldv48gh2gtnj2742p91eof4lco4ta@4ax.com>,
Rich Ulrich <rich.ulrich@comcast.net> wrote:

Ngram has the option to specify that the phrase is the beginning of a >>sentence, using _START_ .

I wou expect it more at the end of a sentence. But I'm not disputing
that "believe me" is more common, just pointing out that it's hard to
find the right comparison.

Right, it is hard to find a good comparison. The start of the
sentence seems pretty unambiguous, whereas the end is
not.

I (just now) looked for a way to have the phrase follow a comma,
but that does not seem to be a possibility.
--
Rich Ulrich
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