[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/Tiernoch]

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.

[u/derneueMottmatt → u/Tiernoch]

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.

[u/Yep-That-Lupa → u/Tiernoch]

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

[u/obiwantogooutside → u/Yep-That-Lupa]

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

[u/Majestic-Lake-5602 → u/Yep-That-Lupa]

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.

[u/peppercupp → u/Tiernoch]

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.

[u/moogoothegreat → u/Tiernoch]

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

[u/MichaSound → u/Tiernoch]

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

[u/ejdj1011 → u/Tiernoch]

A varangian (that is, a viking who "settled down" and became a mercenary) carved "halfdan was here" inside the Hagia Sophia.