This may seem like a lame question without much thought, and it really is, but did any (mainly Classical because we're all brainwashed into believing that this is the optimal stage of Latin, but other ages accepted,) authors use words that sound alike to make a joke about their relationship? If this is too broad, and there are far too many notable examples available, feel free to flag or vote to close it. In an example, please include a brief explanation of the context and like words.
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1All the time - one example that comes to mind (I read it this morning) Horace odes 1.18.7: ac ne quis modici transiliat munera Liberi: we're more accustomed to leaping over moenia than munera. Word play and etymologizing show off the poet's skill and knowledge. You're going to need to narrow it down; are you looking for a specific kind of pun? – Mar Johnson Mar 13 '17 at 21:00
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1Actually, I was looking for any pun. If nobody can give an answer other than this, you could vote to close this question. I never thought that they would be rather common. – Middle School Historian Mar 13 '17 at 21:24
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Puns are not rare. If you are looking for anything whatsoever to get a concrete example, please indicate that in the question. Of course you can also narrow it down if you want. – Joonas Ilmavirta Mar 13 '17 at 21:54
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1Alright, let's wait for someone with more Latin experience (and reputation (: ) to weigh in then - there might be some general principles that can be put down, or a natural modification to make this more answerable. – Mar Johnson Mar 13 '17 at 22:06
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2Puns are certainly not rare in Latin! Pompeii graffiti preserves the oldest known advertising pun, for instance, one of my favorite random facts. Many of the poets enjoyed using wordplay in their work, and some of Plautus's verge on "dad jokes". – Draconis Mar 13 '17 at 22:48
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Oh! Nero was also (allegedly) known for his bad puns. According to Suetonius, he came up with a terrible pun on morior/moror/mōrós after Claudius's death, and repeated it over and over to anyone who would listen. As Prince he always had a captive audience. – Draconis Mar 14 '17 at 00:55
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And there's a famous (but very post-classical) elegiac poem about omnia vincit Amor, punning on the ambiguity between vincit "conquers" and vincit "restrains". I have plenty of these examples if this is what you want, but it can be nowhere near exhaustive. – Draconis Mar 14 '17 at 00:58
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@Draconis Did you forget your earlier question? It at least contains examples of puns already. – cmw Mar 14 '17 at 02:09
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@C.M.Weimer Indeed! Just trying to help narrow down this question in a way that's different from the earlier one (puns rather than jokes). – Draconis Mar 14 '17 at 04:41
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Not sure if I agree with the duplicate vote: my answer to the other question doesn't really include strict "puns." – brianpck Mar 14 '17 at 13:03
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The question can obviously never be answered completely, but the basic answer is of course yes. Puns are all around us, everywhere we go.
One of the examples I remember best, from class, is the rather grim wordplay in Apuleius, Met. VIII, 6 when a bride-to-be finds her future husband murdered:
invita remansit in vita
translatable as:
she remained, unwillingly, alive
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1Maybe we should just turn this answer into a community wiki ? That way, as far as I understand the concept, anyone can edit and there's no huge rep advantage to the original post. – blagae Mar 14 '17 at 08:10
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If you want to turn your answer into CW, flag it and write a custom message "Please make this CW." or something. – Joonas Ilmavirta Mar 14 '17 at 14:13
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@blagae I didn't think this was necessary. It was a short and simple but entirely sufficient answer to a question, no need to turn it into CW, I think. – cmw Mar 14 '17 at 14:21
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I would like to avoid that this kind of question is 'answered' by a hundred comments with separate examples, so it seems logical to me to pool them in a CW. I don't mind the rep anyway :) – blagae Mar 14 '17 at 14:27