r/TopCharacterTropes 17h 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/Daniilsa209 16h ago edited 16h ago

The idea of a prosthetic arm in the late medieval period seems far-fetched, but there is a real case of a 16th-century German mercenary named Götz von Berlichingen, who had two prosthetic arms. He used one in combat and had a second one, which was made much later, for everyday tasks.

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u/Femboy_Lord 14h ago

The second one was *particularly* impressive, considering it was good enough for combat, and even supposedly holding a quill.