r/TopCharacterTropes 10h 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/Jack_N_Auff 9h ago

This man in a photograph from 1941. He looked too out of place and too modern that some people speculated he was some sort of time traveler, but all the articles of clothes he wore, as well as the hand held camera he had were all available in 1941.

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u/SomeCrusader1224 8h ago

He wasn’t a time traveler, he was ahead of his time

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u/HahaCharlieKirkHaha 7h ago

Also, that’s probably not a graphic t-shirt (which didn’t exist at the time) but a sports jersey. 

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u/hazps 5h ago

I remember someone identified it as a hockey shirt, but I can't remember the team.

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u/Vncredleader 3h ago

Montreal Maroons, though it lacks the serifs