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The name Tiffany goes way back to Tiphaine Raguenel, who lived in Mont Saint Michel in the 1300s.

Depending on what generation you belong to, when you hear the name Tiffany, you might think of the famous jewelry store, the teen singer from the 80s or the less-in-the-spotlight daughter of the former president. Most likely, you don't think of a woman who lived in the Middle Ages.

In fact, if you were listening to an audiobook set in medieval times and the narrator introduced a character named Tiffany, you'd probably get yanked right out of the story as your brain would say, "Wait, why is there a Tiffany in this story? Isn't that a much more modern name?"

It's actually not, which is exactly why The Tiffany Problem is called The Tiffany Problem.

The Tiffany Problem refers to the fact that people in modern times will sometimes see something as anachronistic when it's not. It's something writers, filmmakers and other storytellers have to be aware of, as it can feel like there's a historical problem even if there isn't an actual historical problem.

Abraham Piper explains the dilemma and how it was coined:

As Piper shares, fantasy author Jo Walton coined the term "The Tiffany Problem" and explained it:

"Your readers are modern people and know what they know, which is fine except when what they know isn’t actually right. For instance, the name Tiffany sounds extremely modern to us. It feels jarring when we read it as a character name in a historical setting, where we’d be quite happy with names like Anna and Jane. But our instinct is wrong, because Tiffany is a form of Theophania, and it was fairly common in medieval England and France. It went out of fashion later, and it’s because we don’t have seventeenth to nineteenth century examples that it feels modern. But you still can’t use it in a fantasy novel set in the exact time and place when the name would have been historically accurate, because it will jerk the reader out of their reading trance. They know it’s wrong and you can’t tell them that what they know is wrong."

Piper had also shared that "ha ha," which seems like a casual, modern colloquialism, is actually very old, with the first known use coming from a monk 1,000 years ago. He also mentions "OMG," which was used by a World War I admiral in a letter to Winston Churchill in 1917. And "hubby" as a slang term for husband? That goes way back to the 1680s. Who knew?

It's a bit ironic that writers who strive to ensure their historical fiction works are historically accurate can find themselves stymied by people being just flat-out wrong about what's accurate and what's not. Humans are interesting creatures, aren't we?

For more info about the name Tiffany than you ever thought you wanted to know but will be delighted to learn, CGP Grey created a whole video about the name that has 4.7 million views. Tiffany exploded the 1980s, but CGP Grey goes all the way back to the year 300 to uncover the origins of the name. It's genuinely entertaining. Watch:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

If you're still here and want to take an even deeper dive into the history of Tiffany, this other video from CGP Grey is an incredible rabbit hole that will make you appreciate the work historians do and marvel at how much digging Grey actually did to provide the original Tiffany history video. We're talking trips to the deep dark corners of The British Library, the largest library in the world, and hours and hours of paging through books just to find the original source of this one poem that includes the name "Tiffany." It's a journey, but a fascinating one.

Enjoy "Someone Dead Ruined My Life… Again":

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

This article originally appeared last year.

Libby Scott's mom Kym said her 10-year-old daughter "hardly ever" would chose to read or write.

Libby has autism, and her mom said part of the symptoms include rarely reading or writing.

Photo courtesy Kym Scott.


So when Kym saw that Libby had written a fictional short story, she wanted to rally support for her.

She took to Twitter to share the story, titled "The Life of a Perfectionist."

In just a few hundred words, Libby describes a fictional character's struggle to get through her day and the difficult interactions she has with strangers who aren't aware of her condition or how to interact with her.

"I notice that my candles are in the wrong order; the cleaner must've done it," the character says. "I think to myself I don't want to get up as I am so comfortable. I reluctantly climb out of bed to adjust my candles."

Libby's character finds comfort in a song until she becomes upset by the word count and reaches out to Taylor Swift.

"The next morning I realise my favourite song doesn't have exactly 100 words, it has 98. My heart stops," she writes. "A few hours later I find myself writing to the singer telling her how I felt. I got a reply from her saying 'I am sorry but I cannot change the lyrics of my song, lots of love Taylor Swift.'"

Through this fictional character, Libby discovered a way to explain a part of her own experience having autism.

And Twitter users swiftly responded with praise. What started as a simple gesture of support quickly went viral. In less than 48 hours, more than 40,000 people had liked Kym's tweet and nearly 20,000 had retweeted it.

"I had no idea my little bit of writing would go so far, but I’m really excited and pleased," Libby says. "Especially if it helps people see a different viewpoint of autism and if it can help them understand a family member better."

Alan Gardner, a TV presenter in the U.K. with autism, had some simple and poignant praise for how Libby was helping others.

Children's author Ann Cleeves chimed in as well with some words of support that would mean a lot to any writer, let alone a 10-year-old putting her work out into the world for the first time.

Libby even received praise from the head of Condé Nast International, one of the most powerful publishing operations in the world.

Kym posted a second story from Libby and even helped her create her own Twitter account.

Storytelling is one of our most powerful tools for better understanding one another.

By sharing her writing, Libby is building bridges of understanding and empathy with others.

"For too long autism has been misunderstood and autistic people made to try to fit in, which adds hugely to their anxiety," Kym says. "The most important thing we can do for autistic people in my opinion is stop trying to make them fit into a neurotypical world and to allow and encourage them to be their very best autistic selves."

Libby on the right. Photo courtesy of Kym Scott.

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"I’m a very sad man now that she’s gone," Leroy explained. He'd been at his wife's side the moment she died of a heart attack. "I wish I could have saved her."

Leroy, a U.S. veteran, said he'd been doing well staying sober up until that tragedy struck a few months ago. Now he's back on the streets of New Orleans, once again battling alcoholism and homelessness.

Photo courtesy of Justin Doering/Fifty Sandwiches.


"I don’t have anything from her, no pictures, nothing," he said. "[Her] landlord set everything out on the sidewalk and thieves took it all."

Leroy's story is one of many featured by Fifty Sandwiches, a series documenting people experiencing homelessness across the country through stories and photos.

The project was created by Justin Doering, a recent college graduate from Idaho, who raised enough funds on Kickstarter last year to travel solo coast to coast in his van. 34 states and 14,000 miles later, Doering had photographed 78 homeless people and heard their stories.

Photo courtesy of Justin Doering/Fifty Sandwiches.

While traveling, Doering found participants on the streets, in recovery programs, and staying in shelters. He shared meals with them, and in turn, they shared their stories.

Here are five people Doering spoke to during his travels:

1. Stephanie, a 25-year-old living in Texas, who simply wants to be understood.

"I became homeless when I lost my father in 2009 to cancer," she told him. "I was really close with him and that hurt a lot."

Photo courtesy of Justin Doering/Fifty Sandwiches.

"[My dog] is for my Autism. I have high-functioning Autism on the Asperger’s side of the spectrum. It affects your socialization skills, but it affects me mostly emotionally.
***
I wish people would be more understanding to be able to help people like us. All they really say to us is to go get a job. That doesn’t help us. Most job places won’t give us work."

2. Lee, an artist in Venice Beach, California, who speaks out for social justice.

"If we continue to hate each other over skin color, the world will fucking crumble," Lee told Doering. "They say be the change that you want to see. That’s what I’m trying to do."

Photo courtesy of Justin Doering/Fifty Sandwiches.

"People are like ‘I love your hair,’ ‘I love your outfit,' if that’s what you love then what do you really love? When people ask me how I am in the morning, do they really want to know?"

3. Ian from Oregon, who's fighting to get past a turbulent childhood and a family that hadn't accepted him.

"I had a home but I was worried because I was insecure with my own sexuality," Ian said. "I had an idea in my head that there was pressure on me to have a wife and kids. I realized I was homosexual when I was younger but I suppressed a lot of it."

Photo courtesy of Justin Doering/Fifty Sandwiches.

"In my Christian family, I was raised with this idea that I was bad, morally wrong, and that lead me to think I had something seriously wrong with me psychologically. What is so wrong [with] me and why didn’t I think like the rest of my family?"

4. Sheila from Sacramento, who was motivated to turn her life around after living through the devastating death of her dog.

"As we drove to the river and I saw where the smoke was, I already knew," she said. "It was my [homeless] camp. It was my [dog] JJ. Two years of being on the river, and the only days I tie him up there is a fire."

Photo courtesy of Justin Doering/Fifty Sandwiches.

"It had to take my dogs death to realize I didn’t want to be homeless anymore. Cause it could’ve been me.
***
At Saint John’s, I’m six months and eight days clean and sober. It’s a wonderful feeling. It’s an amazing feeling. ... When I move on from here, I’m going to the pound and getting another rescue dog too."

5. Wendell in Atlanta, Georgia, who's learning how to live with a mental illness.

"I have a history of bipolar depression," Wendell explained. "I can’t use that as an excuse [for abusing drugs], I can’t blame anything. ... Bipolar depression is like being down in the pits and there’s no way to get out."

Photo courtesy of Justin Doering/Fifty Sandwiches.

"I had an abusive childhood. I grew up without a father and guys around the neighborhood knew that and took advantage of it. I was beaten up. I was molested. That was just what ‘growing up’ was for me. ... I’ve been clean six months now. I’m taking it one day at a time. I’m back in my own family again, I’m speaking with my kids. That gives me a lot of encouragement."

"Each interview left me in awe of their story," Doering says, a reminder why every individual voice matters.

Having been interested in the issue for years, the 22-year-old thought he understood the complexities of homelessness relatively well. But after speaking to dozens of folks from a wide variety of backgrounds and reasons for ending up without a home, he realized he couldn't possibly "capture a collective face to homelessness" from just one trip across the country.

"Each story was far too distinct from one another to categorize as an entire subset of the culture," he says. And that's the whole point: People experiencing homelessness can't be boxed into a few stereotypes; they're as diverse and deserving of our love and support as anyone else.

He hopes Fifty Sandwiches helps close "the gap between the perception and the reality of homelessness." After all, no one should be defined by their housing situation, and most of the people he talked to didn't start out homeless. "I felt it would be important to share their stories and give a voice to a population whose cries often go unheard," Doering says.

"I ended every single interview asking the question, 'If you could give any advice to the public in their treatment of homeless people, what would it be?'" Doering explains. "The overwhelming response was along the lines of, 'Treat us like we are people.'"

You can read more stories and learn about Fifty Sandwiches on the project's website.

On the surface, "My Favorite Murder" is just another true-crime podcast, a way for people to listen to the highlights of some of the darkest moments in human history.

It attracts listeners — dubbed "murderinos" by co-hosts Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff — who know things like which serial killer built a "murder castle" (H. H. Holmes) and which one dressed up as Pogo the Clown (John Wayne Gacy).

Image via iStock.


But there’s clearly more to the story when your fans start cross-stitching memorable quotes and making baked goods with Ted Bundy's face on them. The podcast attracts a certain kind of listener because it offers them the chance to do something they rarely get to do: have a good laugh about murder.

That’s right. "My Favorite Murder" is a comedy podcast.

Kilgariff (left) and Hardstark. Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images.

Blending horror and comedy may seem like an unlikely formula for success, but less than a year after it launched, Entertainment Weekly named it one of the 10 best podcasts of the year.

The desire to talk about true crime is rooted in more than fascination. It’s born from a need to use humor to cope with the horrors of the world.

"Look, I’m scared of dying so … all of this makes me feel better," Kilgariff admitted early on in the podcast. "It’s as if we could ward it off with just our positive verbal energies."

Image via iStock.

As the creator and executive producer of MTV’s "Sweet/Vicious," Jennifer Kaytin Robinson knows a little something about finding the humor in hard topics. Her show, which follows two female vigilantes who seek justice for victims of sexual assault and other crimes, is also a comedy (albeit a dark one).

"I don’t know what the world looks like anymore if people stop finding humor in what’s happening," Robinson says. "That’s not to say that you should normalize what’s happening, and that’s not to say it’s not serious and I’m not taking it seriously. I just think nothing can ever be sad all the time. It just can’t."

Although we can turn a blind eye to the injustices around us, there's a case to be made for acknowledging them and laughing when we can.  

Because the reality is horrible things will happen whether or not we’re paying attention.

And these things do happen.If the premise of "Sweet/Vicious" seems absurd to you, ask yourself why two college students — even fictional ones — would have to take this kind of action in the first place. It's not a stretch to believe two girls would get fed up and take matters into their own hands when we live in a country where 1 in 5 women and 1 in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college and a time in which advocates are concerned about the future of Title IX protections under the current administration.

Image via "Sweet/Vicious"/MTV.

Grounding storylines in real issues is what makes shows like "Sweet/Vicious" so powerful. Doing so offers victims comfort because they get to see versions of their stories played out on screen. It gives them something to point to and say, "That happens. I know because it happened to me."

"One woman reached out to me on Twitter and told me she was assaulted (and I would never say this if it was a private message; this was a public message) and could never really talk to her dad about it," Robinson says. "And her father and her watch the show every week together ... she told him what happened, but she doesn’t have to get specific because they can just watch. He just understands. He knows."

By leaning into discomfort and finding humor in those experiences, we learn that feeling vulnerable doesn’t mean living in fear.

The creators of "My Favorite Murder" and "Sweet/Vicious" have seen how audience members have been able to regain control of their narratives and better understand their place in the world.

"The most amazing thing about the show is the amount of people who have reached out and said, 'Because of this show, I have gotten help, and I have felt worthy of getting help and deserving of a life, and I have been able to see that this doesn’t define me and isn’t my fault,'" Robinson says.

At the end of the day (or episode), humor offers us one way to take some power back in a world where many of us feel powerless.

And that’s nothing to laugh at.