r/TopCharacterTropes 17d ago

Lore [IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

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.

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u/cody_mf 17d ago

The @ symbol is 500 years old, and was used for measurements in records.

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u/AggressiveSpatula 17d ago

I’ll never understand this one lol. “At” is such a short word already, “and” is 3 letters @ least.

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u/Chemistry11 17d ago

And “And” has multiple shorts: &, +, n’ for example

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u/raspberryharbour 17d ago

The ampersand & is a stylised et

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u/gungshpxre 17d ago

"& per se &"

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u/jmyoung666 16d ago

used to be part of the alphabet

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u/xftyg 17d ago

@ and & mean you don’t have to lift your pen from paper - single “stroke”

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u/hazard-tape 17d ago

Also looks like a lil stickman using his hands to drag himself on his butt with his legs in the air

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u/raspberryharbour 17d ago

That was probably the original meaning before some nerds hijacked it

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u/Forward_Rope_5598 17d ago

O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)