Why do we say 'believe you me'?

It's a rather baffling word order...

Chaucer
(Image credit: Najlah Feanny/Corbis)

Trust me. I know what I'm talking about. You can rely on it. Believe you me.

One of these sentences is not like the others. There are many ways to emphasize a point in English, but only "believe you me" flouts the rules so extravagantly. The phrase basically means "believe me." It's an imperative, and in an imperative, the "you" is understood; we don't typically say it. Sometimes it can be added for emphasis, as in "You! Go!" or "Go, you!" but when there's also an object, like the "me" in "believe me," we'd expect the "you" to come after it — "Believe me, you!" Why does "you" come before the object in "believe you me"?

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Arika Okrent

Arika Okrent is editor-at-large at TheWeek.com and a frequent contributor to Mental Floss. She is the author of In the Land of Invented Languages, a history of the attempt to build a better language. She holds a doctorate in linguistics and a first-level certification in Klingon. Follow her on Twitter.