No Pun Intended

Tata   Wed Jan 31, 2007 3:25 am GMT
What does "No Pun Intended" mean? Dictonaries weren't helpful.

I've always heard this from Americans. They often said this followed by a short pause before saying something else. But I can't figure out the meaning.

Please help.
User   Wed Jan 31, 2007 5:16 am GMT
It means that they did not intend there to be a pun. A pun is a figure of speech which consists of a deliberate confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious.
Robin   Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:32 pm GMT
This is a very common expression.

Sometimes, when people are speaking, they are unintentionally funny.

Sometimes, they will delibrately use a pun, and say something funny, but they will pretend that it was unintentional. So, they will say, 'no pun intended' to draw attention to the joke.

Sometimes, they will say something, that they realise afterwards, sounds a bit funny, and they will say: 'No pun intented'.

A pun is a word, that has more than one meaning. So you can say the word meaning one thing, but you have said something that also means something else.

There must be pages and pages of 'jokes' involving 'puns' on the Internet.
Robin   Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:34 pm GMT
Pun of the Day - Funny Puns, Jokes, One Liners, Word Play and HumorArchive of puns in categories such as food, transportation, families, education, and work. Plus a one-liner pun every week day.
www.punoftheday.com/ - 11k - Cached - Similar pages
T   Wed Jan 31, 2007 10:09 pm GMT
When I was little, someone told me that the government had decided to make saying puns illegal, so if you accidently made a pun, you had to quickly say "no pun intended". I'm glad that's not true.
Tata   Sat Feb 03, 2007 9:57 am GMT
Thanks guys, especially Robin. You're the best, as always!!