One of the things I've been annoyed with recently is the trend of writers and podcasters to say "no pun intended." Well, if you didn't intend a pun, don't tell me you didn't intend a pun, because then you sound like you intended the pun.
Say for instance that you've been sitting all day and your bum is a little sore. You tell your buddy next to you "Man, I could really stand to get off my bum." If you added "no pun intended", then your buddy would have to think to himself, "What did he mean 'no pun intended'?" It messes things up too much. Sure, most of the time if you're on your bum, you have to indeed stand to get off it.
So, something that wasn't intended to be funny in the first place, or at best an inert statement, now discombobulates everything around that part of the tome/conversation. So, don't make things awkward by introducing this insipid phrase. Just let it hang.
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/1764/friday-mailbag-iowa-s-moeaki-to-return
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/2033/michigan-state-schedule-news-spring-game-recap
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