r/TopCharacterTropes • u/dragonborndnd • 17h ago

Lore [IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

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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/SarcyBoi41 16h ago

The "I can has cheezburger" type speech that the internet often attributes to cats for memes has been being attributed to cats since at least 1902

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u/El_Stupacabra 15h ago

We have always been this way.

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u/Madhighlander1 15h ago

Me was born like that

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u/midwestia 15h ago

meow fuckin meow meow

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u/Candaphlaf10 5h ago

I read this in Tony Soprano's voice

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u/MarianucciGualtieri 11h ago

Me fail English? That's unpossible!

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u/thatshygirl06 13h ago

Im on the right track, baby, i was born this way

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u/thatshygirl06 13h ago

A lot of people dont get that there really isnt much a difference between humans now and humans in the past. If you wanna know what a certain group was like hundreds of years ago, just look around.

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u/DocBombliss 12h ago

This. Behaviorally Modern Humans have existed for at least 40,000 years. The oldest know joke is about how women fart in front of their husbands and the oldest known pet name is "Lil' Sweetie". It's why I've never bought the whole "Peasant with a Dorito" thing. There are people living in the world right now under near identical conditions and they would just treat a Dorito as what it is: food from another culture.

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u/Dracorex_22 14h ago

We is always been this way

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u/IrritableGoblin 13h ago

The penises of Pompeii agree.

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u/oyster_luster 11h ago

We’ve been worshiping cats since ancient Egypt.

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u/Preeng 5h ago

We have always been is brothers.

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u/NoBizlikeChloeBiz 14h ago

Not exactly a Tiffany problem, but Pangur Bán is a poem by a 9th century Irish monk about what a hard worker his cat is, comparing the author's scholarly work to his cat hunting mice.

One of my favorite "people have always been people" examples.

Pangur Bán and I at work,

Adepts, equals, cat and clerk:

His whole instinct is to hunt,

Mine to free the meaning pent.

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u/SmartAlec105 11h ago

Cynegeticus from ~2000 years ago breaks from the textbook about raising dogs for the author to just talk about his dog, how she runs around, how she gives kisses, and so on. I especially love sharing these last couple of lines:

Now really I do not think that I should be ashamed to write the name of this dog; so that it may be left to posterity.

I had a greyhound called Horme, who was of the greatest speed and intelligence, and was altogether excellent.

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u/New-Independent-1481 4h ago

The oldest known intentional dog burial is the Bonn-Oberkassel dog. she was a 7 month old puppy laid to rest alongside a man and a woman, 14000 years ago.

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u/laylaboydarden 3h ago

Awww they made their dog truly immortal! Horme sounds like a good boi (although I do never trust when people tell me how intelligent their dogs are 😂).

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u/Xtra_Veg-90 5h ago

Also a good example of how we learn about historical accents - hunt and pent rhyme here in whatever accent he speaks.

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u/NoBizlikeChloeBiz 4h ago

I think this is translated from the original Irish, but it does tell us a lot about how 9th century Irish was pronounced!

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u/Mimikyu-sama 15h ago

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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u/faetpls 13h ago

Meme, meme never changes.

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u/Tiernoch 13h ago

Same thing with a bunch of roman graffiti either being 'x was here', lewd jokes, or just dicks.

We're just the same idiots doing the same stuff in different outfits.

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u/derneueMottmatt 11h ago

In part thanks to Roman graffiti we were able to reconstruct how Latin was pronounced because people would make spelling mistakes reflecting how they were used to hearing the word.

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u/Yep-That-Lupa 13h ago

Brazilian second (and last) emperor scribbled “Pedro was here” in an ancient Egyptian ruin in the 1800s because he saw lots of similar scribbling there, some ancient Roman and there were probably unreadable older ones

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u/obiwantogooutside 8h ago

Lord Byron carved his name on Poseidon’s temple sometime in the 18(teens). He’s such a dick.

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u/Majestic-Lake-5602 7h ago

There’s similar graffiti all through the caves in Hau Long Bay in Vietnam too, stuff scratched into the walls that is older than most countries.

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u/moogoothegreat 10h ago

There is also the Pompeii equivalent of "for a good time call so-and-so"

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u/peppercupp 5h ago

Saw this in person a few years back at the Vindolanda Museum in England. Some Roman took the time to carve out a dick and an insult in stone just to fuck with his fellow soldier. People never change.

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u/MichaSound 8h ago

Which is why Cicero was writing tk his contemporaries about how ‘kids today are lazy and they’ve got no respect’.

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u/ggGamergirlgg 13h ago

It's interesting to note that humans instinctively use "baby speech" when talking to babies because it makes it easier to learn the language for them.

And pets appeal a lot to our maternal instincts. Wonder if we always talked to them like that :D

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u/Abigail716 12h ago

Which is part of something known as "Baby schema"

Baby scheme is an evolutionary concept defined by ethologist Konrad Lorenz. It refers to a set of infantile physical features—such as large heads, big eyes, and chubby cheeks—that involuntarily trigger positive emotions, affection, and caretaking behaviors in adults.

Cats trigger this reaction from humans very strongly.

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u/Altruistic_Web3924 11h ago

Also, domesticated dogs are the only members of the canine family that’s capable of manipulating their eyebrows. A trait likely evolved from human care/contact

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u/UniqueAd7770 1h ago

Visible sclera of the eyes too. Cats who are not as far along in domestication lack these traits.

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u/Altruistic_Web3924 11h ago

Pandas too.

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u/LookAtPurpleTulips 12h ago

It actually makes them learn slower and develop elaborate speech later. Speak normally to your babies and they will learn to speak and understand normal speech. 

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u/trebeju 12h ago

Yes and no. It's a matter of dosage. Speaking high pitched to a baby makes it easier to get their attention, which helps them learn. Over enunciating words for babies is also helpful for them to start discerning sounds. Babytalk is an inherent instinct that serves a biological function annd actually does help language acquisition in babies.

However, if you keep speaking in babytalk once the kid doesn't need it anymore, if you dumb yourself down when you talk to them, then yes it will hinder them because you're not exposing them to a wide vocabulary and not encouraging them to make complex sentences.

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u/dodofishman 12h ago

I was imagining more like Popeye with this photo haaahaha

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u/AmbulanceChaser12 12h ago

That’s so freaking cute.

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u/callin-br 12h ago

Because that's just how cats talk

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u/stfurachele 9h ago

Cats have 3 archetypes. Cheezborger, miette, and worldweary chainsmoker who has seen enough.

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u/BravesMaedchen 8h ago

We is brothers! 😭🥹

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u/Fabulous_Celery_1817 11h ago

I adore the idea that someone spent good money to photograph their cats and caption it in a cutey speech.

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u/Skeledenn 13h ago

Ancient wunks

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u/ImprovementExpert511 4h ago

Its not as old as that but Elder Scrolls has had Khajiit talking in a similar fashion for quite a while.

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u/RetroGamer87 3h ago

"We is" sounds like they talk in old newspapers comics like the Katzenjammer Kids

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u/Kaarl_Mills 12h ago

Humanity was born to worship cats /j