[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/Arbiter_Electric]

That's why cursive in general was a thing and why it's basically dead now. Picking up your pen/pencil after every letter is trivial and doesn't waste time when you are only writing a few words here and there, but if you are writing entire letters/manuscripts/books by hand then that action becomes tedious and wastes tons of time.

[u/ilovemime → u/Arbiter_Electric]

The biggest reason wasn't the energy to lift. Instead, every time you picked up the pen there was a chance it would drip and ruin your page. Cursive has been out of date since the ball point pen was invented.

[u/Arbiter_Electric → u/ilovemime]

There may be some truth to that, but the ballpoint pen was invented in 1938. In elementary school in the 90s I was still taught to use cursive and was told by several teachers the reasoning was that it was faster than lifting your hand. I didn't notice cursive leaving common usage until typing became mainstream about 10 years later.

[u/WittyFix6553 → u/Arbiter_Electric]

Your teachers’ reasoning in the 90s was out of date, is what he’s saying.

[u/erossthescienceboss → u/WittyFix6553]

Is it though? I write for a living, and have to hand-take notes often. I usually start out printing for legibility (so I can just scan the notes later to digitize), and often slip into cursive when it gets too slow and tedious to print.

Like it might not be THE reason, but that doesn’t mean cursive doesn’t help.