Timeline for What's up with the "pun (not) intended" thing?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
47 events
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Feb 18, 2016 at 23:17 | history | edited | ColleenV |
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Jan 19, 2016 at 18:22 | comment | added | user428517 | @Mehrdad yeah, but there's a time and a place. people who say "no pun intended" constantly are quite annoying (i know people who do this). just say what you want to say. | |
Jan 19, 2016 at 17:13 | comment | added | user541686 | @sgroves: Your "no one would care" attitude is based on the idea that people don't care about puns, but some people actually do enjoy them and do care. If you don't, then you can just ignore it. | |
Jan 19, 2016 at 16:54 | comment | added | user428517 | @Mehrdad yes, but why? you could just not say anything, and no one would care. the average person realizes that some things people say sound like puns even when they aren't intended to be. give your audience some credit. we all use language every day. we get it how it works. | |
Jan 17, 2016 at 17:43 | comment | added | Jon Story | One thing to note: Pointing out your puns is far more common in US English than the British English (similar to how Americans tend to point out their sarcasm etc). Brits/Commonwealth English speakers will usually let you work out for yourself if the pun was intentional. | |
Jan 17, 2016 at 14:12 | comment | added | kapex | @CJDennis oops, I neither indented nor intended that ;) | |
Jan 17, 2016 at 8:46 | comment | added | Deepak | @SteveJessop So it's only punny when it ain't funny? :) | |
Jan 17, 2016 at 5:47 | comment | added | CJ Dennis | @kapep I think most puns here are intended, but only a few are indented. | |
Jan 16, 2016 at 16:01 | answer | added | Spudley | timeline score: 2 | |
Jan 16, 2016 at 12:49 | comment | added | Hagen von Eitzen | Yeah, that's what she said ... | |
Jan 16, 2016 at 10:53 | answer | added | user541686 | timeline score: 3 | |
Jan 16, 2016 at 10:47 | comment | added | user541686 | @sgroves: It's happened to me so many times that I did not even think of any pun, but then said or written a word and realized it made a pun. Was the pun intended? No, but that's what I wrote and I noticed it... so I write down "no pun intended" to mention that it wasn't intentional. (Doubly important if the secondary meaning is not desirable in the context!) | |
Jan 16, 2016 at 5:46 | answer | added | David M W Powers | timeline score: 2 | |
Jan 16, 2016 at 3:57 | answer | added | dwoz | timeline score: 1 | |
Jan 15, 2016 at 21:28 | comment | added | user6768 | People don't usually say pun intended, but they tell the audience with their face and voice inflections. However, unintended spoken puns usually go unnoticed unless one of the audience members brings it up. Written words allow for much more reflection as you "speak", hence, comments about what you are saying is natural. | |
Jan 15, 2016 at 20:50 | comment | added | Kyle Strand | @mhwombat I see the phrase in writing pretty often, and it's pretty annoying. OP, I think I read a rant about this somewhere (complaining about how stupid the phrase is whether or not you include the word "not"), but I can't remember where, unfortunately. | |
Jan 15, 2016 at 20:21 | answer | added | jez | timeline score: 2 | |
S Jan 15, 2016 at 15:36 | history | suggested | Kyle | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
I just wanted to add the "up" in the title, I had to change some other little stuff to do so, don't punish me for that!
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Jan 15, 2016 at 13:40 | review | Suggested edits | |||
S Jan 15, 2016 at 15:36 | |||||
Jan 15, 2016 at 1:16 | answer | added | Lawrence | timeline score: 1 | |
Jan 14, 2016 at 20:55 | comment | added | user428517 | @jr me neither. i don't actually expect it to be stamped out: that would be idiotic and short-sighted. i just said i don't like it, and i still don't. it adds nothing to any conversation. | |
Jan 14, 2016 at 20:47 | comment | added | J.R.♦ | @sgroves - I think "no pun intended" is a shortened way of saying something more verbose, like, "Gee, I didn't mean to make that pun there, but, come to think of it, it's kinda funny." You can hate it all you want, but it's pretty well-established, and I don't have high hopes for your campaign to stamp it out. | |
Jan 14, 2016 at 20:02 | comment | added | user428517 | @mhwombat i'm talking about in speech, too. if you didn't mean to make the pun, then don't call it out. it's just dumb. no one will think it was intentional if you don't give some sort of indication, like a smile. just continue on with what you want to say. | |
Jan 14, 2016 at 19:29 | answer | added | Kyle | timeline score: 5 | |
Jan 14, 2016 at 18:08 | comment | added | Joao Arruda | +1 for correct use of punception. Made me groan but it also made me smile. | |
Jan 14, 2016 at 18:06 | comment | added | user28903 | It is not difficult to say something and only afterward realize that what you said could be interpreted as a pun; in which case "Pun not intended" is valid. | |
Jan 14, 2016 at 16:40 | comment | added | mhwombat | @sgroves In think I hear the phrase most commonly in spoken language. Someone says something and afterward they notice the pun, so they say "no pun intended" so the listener won't think they have a lame sense of humour or aren't taking the subject seriously. But writing "no pun intended" would be illogical, as you point out. | |
Jan 14, 2016 at 11:34 | vote | accept | Pavel | ||
Jan 14, 2016 at 9:17 | comment | added | Bent | Once a local newspaper had a joke competition where you could win nice prizes. I entered 10 jokes to see if any of them could win a prize, but no pun in ten did. | |
Jan 14, 2016 at 8:43 | answer | added | Stig Hemmer | timeline score: 7 | |
Jan 14, 2016 at 4:10 | comment | added | slebetman | With regards to drawing attention to something. This has a long history in English (though I don't think it's specifically English). Sometimes when done right it's called "breaking the fourth wall". Sometimes it's self-parody. It's doing what the audience does not expect, breaking genre norms or trope. The logic is, a joke is funny if you don't explain it, if you explain a joke ironically the actual joke is that you are not funny (which is sometimes even more hilarious than the literal joke told). If done wrong it would only make you look stupid | |
Jan 14, 2016 at 1:30 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackEnglishLL/status/687446596754235392 | ||
Jan 14, 2016 at 1:03 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | @T.J.L: by a simple "no true Scotsman" argument, if it's humorous then it's not a pun, it's a play on words. | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 23:29 | comment | added | Kijewski | Related xkcd: No Pun Intended. :-) | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 22:54 | comment | added | user428517 | i HATE this phrase with a burning passion. if you noticed the pun and said "pun not intended", then clearly the pun was intended. how could it not have been? if you didn't want to make a pun, you would have chosen different words or not said "pun not intended" (because you didn't notice the pun). it's unnecessary language fluff, and i hate it. | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 21:37 | comment | added | T.J.L. | @Martha That's kind of biased, don't you think? I'm sure, given enough effort we could find a selection of puns that would make you chuckle. If we had less than eleven, but definitely more than nine, and even one made you laugh, you couldn't say no pun in ten did. | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 21:34 | comment | added | Mr Lister | But none of the answers address the real question, namely why does this happen much more often in English text than in other languages? (Maybe the question should have been asked on ELU.) Now I think of it, I can't think of a single example of a text in my own language where the author needs to point out they were making a pun, or they weren't. | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 20:54 | answer | added | Sanchises | timeline score: 19 | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 20:22 | comment | added | kapex | Similar question on ELU: english.stackexchange.com/questions/111610/… - in contrast to some answer here, the opinion there mostly is that "no pun indented" is almost always used to draw attention to an intended pun. | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 17:50 | answer | added | Jay | timeline score: 38 | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 17:43 | history | edited | Martha | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
clarified title
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Jan 13, 2016 at 17:40 | comment | added | Martha | The key to understanding this is to realize that puns aren't humor. (Proof: you laugh at humor, but you groan at puns.) | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 17:16 | answer | added | Peter | timeline score: 1 | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 17:11 | answer | added | ssav | timeline score: 87 | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 16:35 | answer | added | JB King | timeline score: 2 | |
Jan 13, 2016 at 16:17 | review | First posts | |||
Jan 13, 2016 at 16:21 | |||||
Jan 13, 2016 at 16:16 | history | asked | Pavel | CC BY-SA 3.0 |