AMERICAN PHRASE, widely considered by some to be a cliché. Two uses of this phrase.
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1. "No pun intended!" Is a clarification you make after a remark you uttered that DID indeed contain a
pun. You exclaim, "No pun intended" because you honestly did
mean to construct the setence to contain a
pun.
#2 The second meaning of, "no pun intended" can be tongue-in-cheek or more harshly put, untruthful. In this instance a person purposely inserted the
pun. The motivations for doing so vary. Some reasons include: doing it to be humerous, attempting to be clever, wanting to engage in word play, or doing so to annoy
people who hate puns. They fib by saying, "No pun intended!" because: they want to avoid embarrassment after no
one laughed, escape retribution from those they annoyed on purpose or perhaps they feel foolish for making the
pun at all.
#1 Pun WITHOUT intent. "That pistol is so tiny looks like he could be a son of a
gun. Sorry, no pun intented!"
#2 Pun WITH intent: "Look at that
duck. Hope he has a lot of
money just look at the size of his BILL! Ha, ha, ha! No pun intended, right guys?"
intended no pun intented unintended pun puns "no pun intended" phrase cliché
