I kid you not

English edit

Alternative forms edit

I shit you not (vulgar)
I fuck you not (vulgar)

Etymology edit

A print reference of the phrase appeared in 1948 in the International Stereotypers' and Electrotypers' Union Journal, Volume 43:

Boy!, Oh Boy! I said I asked for a headache when I volunteered for this job, and I kid you not when I repeat it.

It next appeared as a phrase spoken by Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg in Herman Wouk's 1951 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Caine Mutiny":

That's the Navy for you. Pass the buck and get a receipt. Act at discretion, hey? Well that's exactly what I'm going to do, and I kid you not.

It was later popularized by Jack Paar, host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962, who used this as his signature phrase. It humorously combines the colloquial verb kid with the archaic negation through not without do-support.

Phrase edit

I kid you not

(colloquial) Used to insist that one is telling the truth.
- 2011, Jonathan Marc Sherman, Knickerbocker, page 25:
  ...I leaf through the stack of magazines they've got, and one of them — I kid you not — one of them is a Naughty Nurses magazine.

Translations edit

Translations

Finnish: en(kä) narraa, en(kä) petkuta, en(kä) puijaa, en(kä) juksaa
French: ce n’est pas une blague
German: ich schwör's dir, (slang) kein Scheiß
Polish: nie żartuję
Spanish: no bromeo, no es broma

References edit

“I kid you not” (US) / “I kid you not” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
“I kid you not” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
“I kid you not” in Idioms and phrases, TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.
Chelsey Parrott-Sheffer (2008 January 29) “Jack Paar”, in Encyclopædia Brittanica, retrieved July 9, 2019