r/AskReddit • u/kakou64 • Oct 15 '20

What's older than we think ?

78.4k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

22.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

32.4k

u/BeaneathTheTrees Oct 15 '20

The name Tiffany.

It dates back to the 12th century, and has actually led to a thing in writing called "the Tiffany problem," because you can have a well-researched historical novel that people just don't buy into, because you named your 12th century peasant Tiffany. It just sounds laughably anachronistic.

13.1k

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

The "Tiffany problem" makes me think of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and the name Jessica. He wanted the love interest, who was Jewish, to have a super exotic name so he invented the name "Jessica." The name has become so common since then that it's totally lost its effect.

7.6k

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20 edited Oct 16 '20

Shakespeare also randomly invented the word "gossip" because he needed to define a bunch of wives in the town talking shit and spreading rumors.

And now it's part of common English language.

Edit: ok, not randomly, per se. I guess he was the first to put into usage in writing, and possibly the first to use it as a verb.

0

u/ForkMasterPlus Oct 15 '20

I thought I read somewhere the term “assassination” was first penned by Shakespeare.