"No Pun Intended" Discussion

[Kisama]

Seeing mostly Americans arguing about the "correct spelling of an English word" on an international forum and making claims that "the correct spelling of a word" is a factual matter, where the difference between the "correct spelling" and the "incorrect spelling" is a matter of a single letter, really gives colour to my day.

I think it's going to be one of my favourite things all week.

I laughed :)

Spoiler:

Plasma Felis wrote

U no, ur rite. Speling is oll rellativ. Its sillie too worie ey lott abowt it.Wee shud oll just lyeten upp!

Well, spelling hardly matters if your reading comprehension is so poor that that's what you think I said!

Well, your argument was not terribly clear. I'd narrowed it down to one of "bad spelling is fine", or "bad spelling is fine as long as you only get one letter wrong", or "I am going to bitch at Americans for spelling this word wrong even though it's spelled exactly the same way in British English". None of them really made sense, so I picked the one that led to the most amusing response.

I believe what radtea was getting at is that the words colour and favourite (also neighbour, flavour, behaviour, etc.) are spelled with the 'u' characters included in "British English" whereas in "US English" they have (by general consensus as far as a I know) been changed to color, favorite, etc. If the "correct spelling of an English word" is a factual matter then those US spellings are incorrect and the difference is a matter of a single letter, thus it is ironic for Americans to argue against the evolution of spelling.

Having explained the joke I have now nullified its effectiveness, dammit, no pun intended.

[Ghona]

I internalized your girlfriend's attitudes.

LAST NIGHT.




I'm going to be reading "no pun intended" as "last night" from now on.

[ThemePark]

...

Looks like the official way of looking at it is that neither are correct, and it should be "damn it" or "dam it", depending on whether you stubbed your toe or are interested in hydroelectricity.

I got beaten to my pun intended by 4 pages! Dam(m|n)it!

I just did a quick survey of my friends on the puns in this thread to give a rough estimate of how many puns of each set of ten actually made someone laugh.

Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

Pure win.

[podbaydoor]

Ahahahahaha...genius.

Finally, an awesome My Hobby comic. We've had too few of those lately.

[pinkgothic]

For those who're so sure there's no reason to ever say "no pun intended", aside from those moments when you realise it too late: Sometimes the only option to reword the bit with the pun is extremely awkward. So, even though you know of its puntastic qualities beforehand, you'd rather stick to that wording, but, well, with no pun intended. This happens to me a lot, because I'm a loser like that.
(By the way, the page that claims it takes longer to type "no pun intended" than to type something else (at risk of feeding that troll [=the site, not the poster], pardon) strikes me as hilariously wrong, unless you're such a slow typer that coming up with the alternative is going to be shorter than typing that very phrase.)

I also couldn't help but view the 'internalised' / 'girlfriend' bits to actually be a pun even on first reading... but that may be because "It doesn't matter if you have your sex organs on the inside or the outside" is a concept burnt into my synapses. As words.

I also firmly believe that was intentional.

[faunablues]

I guess it's difficult to make an accidental pun while writing, but there have been several times where what I typed can be taken the wrong way (-> innuendo) without me realizing it. Not exactly "no pun intended" situation, but "no innuendo intended" isn't cliché and so it doesn't roll off the keyboard quite as well.
And what's all this bantering about Americans and there awfull spelings? Im haff English (I no that duzn't exackly make sense, but u no wut i mean) but a resident of the US and I doant understands this. Its' not lyke Americans are the source of variyation in English spellings, or people who still live in the U.K. are somehow preserving the "true" spellings just by virtyoo of living their. And what about Aussies?
Anyways, plz to not preserve Middle English spelings just because they ar older. And if you's goin to blame anywuns for creating and propagating misspellings, blame teh lolspeekurz!!!1!

[DVC]

Wait, his intern is lying with his girlfriend?

[themuffinking]

Annoy your friends!: Pronounce 'dammit' as dam-nit. (no pun intended)

[Invertin]

Presumably someone figured out there was no "n" sound anywhere, so s/he replaced it with an m.

Tsunami should be Sunami then?

Tsu and Su are different syllables in Japanese, the language whence the word comes.

Fair enough, but a silent letter doesn't automatically make it wrong.

It's kind of moot considering what's happened in between.

Dammit damnit dammit damnit!

I must note that "no pun needed" certainly is necessary with certain people. Such as a friend, who will find innuendo in anything. (and no pun intended is just easier to say.)

Luckily I've trained myself to see potential innuendo before he does. He still surprises me sometimes. "Look at that tree! It's long and thin and hard!"

[jordan]

Shoot. My friends read this comic, it won't be long before they're wise to my private proclivity.

[itsausername]

I would like to note that the title bar for the main wepage says "XKCD - A Webcomic - No pun intended"

[Eternal Density]

However, if you have a time machine, you should never say "no pun intended."

If you have a time machine, you can say, "No pun will have been intending."

...though I have tried to be delicate in the handling of such a sensitive area, pun fully intended.

Well handled: I nearly fell out of my chair.

I also couldn't help but view the 'internalised' / 'girlfriend' bits to actually be a pun even on first reading... but that may be because "It doesn't matter if you have your sex organs on the inside or the outside" is a concept burnt into my synapses. As words.

*has Stargate SG-1 flashbacks*

I'm going to be reading "no pun intended" as "last night" from now on.

Reminds me of something that happened to me yesterday. I warned my dad to be careful with something he was carrying and instead of saying "Careful is my middle name" he randomly changed it to "Careful is my middle finger" without any thought to the alternate interpretation and consequences. Thus now if someone runs into me I can yell "Careful" in place of violent gestures with no one being the wiser. Not that I'm the sort to yell or gesture at people in such a way, but it's the thought that counts. (And no, that's not what she said.)

In other news, I just won the other game!

[Phasma Felis]

Again cause it didn't take the first time: the "T" in "Tsunami" is not silent.

[zdc26z]

I prefer to see damn it spelled as such. I see no reason to shorten it to one word, and I KNOW that my spelling is correct.

[6453893]

Again cause it didn't take the first time: the "T" in "Tsunami" is not silent.

The most important thing ever said in these forums.

[tahrey]

Now then, youse saft bunch...

iain_benson, SEE, and later lunarul:
Hurrah! ... it only took 'til* halfway down the second page this time before someone (...two people) bothered to actually check the facts rather than just relying on conjecture, anecdotes and flaming all over the place. Didn't want to be the nerd having to do it this time... Besides, it's an informal construct of a cussword** and pronoun, the spelling's open to interpretation if you're not going to dictionary it. You may as well try to argue that "gonna" (or the strange modern form that loses the g and any leading spaces) should instead be go'n'o or something. (GOiNg tO ... and I have heard people pronounce it "gonno" in some dialects). Hell it was probably made up by some movie scriptwriter anyway, hence the traceback to perhaps 1905.
BTW, "win" for actress & bishop suffixes

6453893: haha yeah i'm quite the fan of changing the emphasis for suggestive purposes, if you know what I mean... Or in other words, pinkgothic - would you like me to internalise your attitudes? I find them quite appealing.
doctorb, red hal et al: stop it before I invite Tim Vine and his pun-cannon to the thread and leave your ability to breathe in jeopardy
on that front, via Fry & Laurie - zomgmouse's excellent and sort of related sig not to mention alias.exe's avatar...

BTW the a/an thing wasn't phonetically based I was taught. It was because all words that now start with a vowel, or a droppable consonant then a vowel, were originally spelled with an N... Norange, Nhistoric, etc. Can you get me a norange and a basket to put it in, mother? Certainly, any particular type of basket? A nhistoric one if possible, please. Alright I'll see what I can find.
Mind you that was my grandad telling me it, so it could all me nonsense. It gets better when you hear someone with a dropped-aitch accent pronouncing things with a prefixed "a" rather than "an". A 'igh ledge atop a 'istoric building. My local area is rife with it. Personally - though I haven't checked - my own usage probably varies depending on situation and who I'm talking to... I'll happily flit between all four modes. Does it really make any serious difference? No, unless you're trying to make an impression on some important/classy people (or people who think they are and wield enough influence to affect your life).

Justaman: so we can have "dam-nify" (not dammify), "dam-ning" (not damming), etc, presumably still pronounced the same***, but not dam-nit to go with dammit? English is a funny old language.

Finally: radtea ... I think I love you... pfffft (and ghona)
(Marks & Spencers Cola all over the keyboard, this day 27/3/09 ... good thing I'd already finished my really-quite-rare shop-bought egg & cress sarnie ... sorry, I mean, "sammich"****)

WOO FOOTNOTES
* however I must insist on spelling this word like this. Regardless of the etymological background, I've never come across it in a context other than interchangable with / a contraction of until, and regardless even of that - if you're going to use a shortform, apostrophe and all (or not), why stick a needless extra letter on the end, 'til the whole thing is just as long as the putative parent word anyway?
** or curse-word, if you prefer.
*** am I weird for sometimes slipping into a mode where the "n" starts to become vaguely audible on the end of a spoken damn? (Or sometimes even french or colloquial japanese words... petit, de-su, etc). Kinda like the opposite of tsu-na-mi...
**** this is a really weird one, as it's someone's name being butchered.

[EugeneSlipped]

Been said many times, but who the hell would say "Damnit"? It's just wrong. Wrong. Looks terrible. Sure, it seems like it should be, since it's a merging of "damn" and "it", but heck damn, it's dammit dammit!

[wisefolly]

Dannit is completely wrong, but that's what I use sometimes just to annoy some of the types here. Dannit!

[Glenn Magus Harvey]

This is a very interesting idea. No pun intended.

[Eternal Density]

Been said many times, but who the hell would say "Damnit"? It's just wrong. Wrong. Looks terrible. Sure, it seems like it should be, since it's a merging of "damn" and "it", but heck damn, it's dammit dammit!

I agree, and add that your avatar is incredibly awesome. I've thought so for a long time, and it's still true.

[twocooldudes]

Wiktionary says that 'dammit' is correct

Though 'damnit' is often used, despite being incorrect

[muteKi]

I dislike damnit greatly, and am willing to accept dammit largely on the basis of familiarity.

I much prefer it as two words (damn it); it certainly seems odd to not be in favor of that yet still say that alright is nonstandard usage. I guess another example of proscription vs. description then.

[The1exile]

Um, no, it isn't. There's a reason why dammit has an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary and damnit doesn't

According to the versions I have in my possession, "Dammit" doesn't have an entry in the OED. The Concise Oxford goes straight from "dammar" to "damn" (which, incidentally, includes in its defintiion "as close as damn it"). Nor does the Shorter Oxford, which lists instead as the word preceding "damn" as "damme", being a contraction of "damn me".

It /is/ possible that the absolutely and utterly complete oxford dictionary of english as ever spoke EVAH lists "dammit" over "damnit", but its lack of use in any common publication suggests that the authority of such a claim is lacking. In fact, they're probably just waiting for us to argue to a consensus over standard form to include in the next ed.

I write damnit over dammit (at least when I don't use "damn it" as a bit of a literary hack), partly because I suspect the second is an Americanism, but mostly because to not do so would be inconsistent with words like damned.

[phider2]

According to The Random House Dictionary of the English Language - The Unabridged Edition, which is 1664 pages, not counting the 395 pages of other misc "SUPP." information and atlas, "dammit" is a word, but is "Informal." "Damnit" is not.

[Kisama]

According to The Random House Dictionary of the Enclish Language - The Unabridgesd Edition, which is 1664 pages, not counting the 395 pages of other misc "SUPP." information and atlas, "dammit" is a word, but is "Informal." "Damnit" is not.

Are "Enclish" and "Unabridgesd" words?

[phider2]

..Thank you for politely pointing out that I made 2 typos.

[Kisama]

..Thank you for politely pointing out that I made 2 typos.

It's my pleasure, though I sincerely did at first believe that they might be archaic spellings. Which kind of ties in with what other people have said about langage evolving etc, etc...
By virtue of the fact that a collection of letters are being used to represent an idea, damnit is a word, just not an official English word. I prefer dammit because, hey, double-m is cool! Like immediately, and hammer, and m&m. Mmm.

[phider2]

Actually, after you said that I looked them up to see if they were words

By virtue of the fact that a collection of letters are being used to represent an idea, damnit is a word, just not an official English word.

That makes me wonder, who decides if it's an official word? The people that write the dictionaries?

[iceberg]

I don't think i ever write it as damnit or dammit... I always type it damn it. (my firefox spell checks says damnit is wrong)

Isn't a word a something we use to communicate? so as long as you can understand me we are using words are we not?

[Ghona]

Actually, after you said that I looked them up to see if they were words

By virtue of the fact that a collection of letters are being used to represent an idea, damnit is a word, just not an official English word.

That makes me wonder, who decides if it's an official word? The people that write the dictionaries?

Nobody, for English. For French and Icelandic, it's a whole 'nother story.

[Kewangji]

How about this? http://cowbirdsinlove.com/3

That's some serious problems with overreaction, right there.

[Faranya]

I hate puns. I absolutly hate them.

But I seem to stumble inadvertantly across them in casual speech, which then proceeds to cause me distress.

[INTanl]

My hobby: placing "[sic]" in quotations with no obvious errors.