TL;DR

There’s a term that came into use in the early 2000s, but in the last decade it has mutated in the wild so that what is being said is different from what is meant. That term: TL;DR.

What TL;DR Originally Meant

TL;DR is an abbreviation for too long; didn’t read.

It started off as a response: “Did you see the blog post about…?” And the response would be: “TL;DR”.

Here, it was clearly understood—the post was too long, so I didn’t read it. TL;DR was a shorthand way of saying: I just couldn’t be bothered to read something so long.

I couldn’t be bothered to read it…

So far, so logical.

How People Now Use TL;DR

But then TL;DR started mutating.

You may have encountered this mutation. People are now prefacing their posts with “TL;DR” as a way to say “if you don’t have time to read the whole thing, here’s the short version”. It’s another way of saying: “summary”.

Logically, this mutation doesn’t fully hang together. And there’s also something of a challenge with this mutation in that you’re identifying your own work as being too long to be worth reading.

this is how people are using the term

While I don’t love this mutation, this is how people are using the term. More significantly, this is how people understand the term.

Why Not “Summary”?

Me? I much prefer the term summary, but if you want to hang with the cool kids…

This post was last updated on 31 August 2023