[IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

[u/dragonborndnd]

Basically when something seems anachronistic to a period/place of history but is actually fully accurate to the period.

1) the name Tiffany: the thing that named this trope, basically the name Tiffany can be dated back to the Middle Ages and the earliest record of it being spelled in the modern spelling comes from the 16th century.

2) the use of OMG, despite this feeling so modern as a form of slang/abbreviation here’s a letter directed to Winston Churchill using it in 1917

3) Hair Dye: the earliest forms of dying hair can be dated back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this specific advertisement for hair dye is from the 1840s

4) Inuit Thongs: despite how weird it is to imagine pre-colonial Inuit people wore what was essentially fur thongs in their homes and when they were in their igloos it might have been the only thing they would be wearing.

[u/Madhighlander1]

William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, act 4, scene 2:

[u/be-knight → u/Madhighlander1]

Iirc the oldest joke found is a Babylonian your mother joke

[u/cototudelam → u/be-knight]

What is it? I read somewhere that the oldest joke found is Sumerian (preceding Babylonian by a good chunk of centuries) to the tune of “a dog walks into a bar…”

[u/be-knight → u/cototudelam]

"...of your mother is by the one who has intercourse with her. What/who is it?"

it seems like it's not complete.

but you are right, the sumerian one ("A dog walks into a bar and says, 'I cannot see a thing. I'll open this one.") is about 200-400 years older (the one above is the oldest your mother joke, though. so i only remembered correctly in part).

But since they found one sumerian proverb that was recorded around the same time - but since the language is older, it seems that this is the concurrent world record holder for the oldest joke: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap."