I'm not being funny

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I'm not being funny

1. (Britain, idiomatic) Used as a softening preface to a statement that might be taken as offensive or malicious.
   • 2009, Gavin Dudeney, ‎Nicky Hockly, Learning English as a Foreign Language For Dummies (page 296)

     Clara: Well, I'm not being funny, but those clothes aren't really suitable for having meetings with clients.
     John: Really?
     Clara: I think so – a shirt and tie, or suit and shirt would be better.

   • 2011, Martin Stanley, The Gamblers, page 280:

     I'm not being funny, but you make me nervous.

   • 2013, Kate Tempest, Wasted, page 13:

     You know, I'm not being funny, but, you know, when he's with all his cool new 'creative' mates. They ain't real, Tony. They ain't like us. They sit around, with ironic trousers on and three haircuts each, waiting to be discovered.

• 2009, Judith Baxter, Kieran Wallace, Outside in-group and out-group identities? Constructing male solidarity and female exclusion in UK builders' talk (in Discourse & Society, volume 20, issue 4).