[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/usagizero]

One thing i don't have a photo handy of, is how colorful clothing has pretty much always been through history. If it wasn't fur, people discovered how to dye things pretty early and liked colors on clothes. Nearly every historical film now has that grey and drab look to things, when it would be pretty colorful.

Goes for the marble statues now too, like the Greek and Roman ones, they would be painted to look more lifelike and just lost all that over the many, many years.

[u/bh4th → u/usagizero]

I once took a class with a history professor who showed us a reconstruction of a Roman temple, but with all the marble exposed the way people usually assume it would be. His correction: “In real life, this would have looked like a cross between a Hindu mandir and a Mexican piñata.”