as I live and breathe
For sure, definitely, as in As I live and breathe, I've never seen a more beautiful view. This expression is generally used to emphasize the truth of a statement and has been so used since the mid-1600s, although sometimes it was put simply as as I live. However, the complete phrase was also used early on, as in Arthur Murphy's 1756 play The Apprentice (2:1): “As I live and breathe, we shall both be taken, for heaven's sake let us make our escape.”
RELATED CONTENT
What’s The Name For The Dot Over “i” And “j”?While many languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, add specific accents to the letters or characters throughout their alphabet, the English alphabet has only two letters that include a diacritic dot. This mark is added to a letter to signal a change in either the sound or meaning of a character. What is the additional name of this curious dot that hovers over the ninth …
Should You Say “Between You And I” Or “Between You And Me”?Why are there different ways of saying the same thing? Grammar is a combination of rules and conventions. What’s the difference? Well, the rules are things like a verb must agree with its subject. By that rule, “he say” is incorrect. Then there are conventions, which are uses of language that are common enough that even though they break the “rules” they become “correct” simply …
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.