TLDR (an English teacher's rant)

[willietheweirdo]

TLDR = Telecaster Leather Dangle Rope. It's a style of guitar strap.

 

[TokyoPortrait]

Hi.

Fredrik Bachman, “Anxious People

I watched that on Netflix, kinda accidentally. Now I’m a fan. Half way through A Man Called Ove (the book). Fantastic.

it is a self deprecating softener

I dig self depreciation. But then, I am a bit of a dick.

Pax/
Dean

 

[P Thought]

All right then. I looked it up, and I see what some of you refer to: a warning that you've attached a document or something long, warned your message recipient with a "TL;DR", and summarized the content.

That's not the usual context of its usage here. Here on TDPRI it's almost always used as a comment on a poster's wordiness, the length of ther post or its need for paragraph breaks, and that's bad manners. Nuts.

 

[4pickupguy]

I saw that damn white puffy cloud again today. It waiting for me to go outside to roll the trash cans down and suddenly acted like it just happened to be floating by again. I SEE YOU UP THERE!! YOU AINT FOOLIN’ NOBODY CLOUD!!!

 

[oregomike]

LOL, boomer.

(I don't think anyone actually says "boomer" anymore though)



Seriously, "TLDR" is very appropriate in most cases. It actually stands for "Too Lazy, Didn't Read"

It's actually, "Too long; didn't read." but, splitting hairs. I'm assuming the OP thinks the former is more accurate.

It's all over the emails where I work, and is used as a courtesy, "here's the gist."
We also have the common email subject title "If you're not <interested in subject>, you can stop reading now."
On this forum I've seen it both as a courtesy and as a passive-aggressive jab, usually when someone doesn't use paragraphs on a lengthy post, or "paragraphs are you friend", etc.

 

[telleutelleme]

OOPS we ran into a problem.
Please enter a valid message

 

[Cpb2020]

At least I’m not the only one who had to google it.

 

[TheFuzzDog]

Bulk-purchase, big bag of nuts to everyone who posts this arrogant, ignorant little snidety on anyone's post about anything.

These are the letters that will go on the flag of the Aliteracy Movement, the organization promoting the interests of people who can read and write, but who choose not to.

You want to belong to that group, fine. You choose then to stunt your own development. But why promote that stunting in others?

It's a rude, snotty comment, and it doesn't reflect well upon you, so please refrain from making it. This public service rant is brought to you on behalf of your English teacher, whoever s/he was.

Bulk-purchase, big bag of nuts to everyone who posts this arrogant, ignorant little snidety on anyone's post about anything.

These are the letters that will go on the flag of the Aliteracy Movement, the organization promoting the interests of people who can read and write, but who choose not to.

You want to belong to that group, fine. You choose then to stunt your own development. But why promote that stunting in others?

It's a rude, snotty comment, and it doesn't reflect well upon you, so please refrain from making it. This public service rant is brought to you on behalf of your English teacher, whoever s/he was.

Dude. Tl;dr.

 

[oregomike]

Same here. I've only used it in my posts, usually as a (hopefully) humorous summation of my post. I would never respond to someone else's post with "tl; dr". That's just rude.

It is rude, and takes more time to reply with that than to just move on to something else. I think I'm guilty of using it once in a crass way when someone posted some manifesto length gripe, negatively calling out other members (don't think it was here), and I used TLDR as a snub as it wasn't worth my (or anyone's) time engaging in what was an obvious loaded post. Though, just replying TLDR was the engagement and didn't help.

I've seen it used to preface a summary, as a substitute for "cliff's notes".

I've also seen it used as a response to a long, poorly written, self indulgent, unedited spew. I don't believe I've used it in this way, but I've not been bothered by it in these instances. I couldn't use tldr honestly when I read the whole thing, so maybe I need TLRTWA (too long resented the writer afterwards) to be a thing.

I've also seen it after well written, detailed posts, and now I feel glad I'm no one's english teacher. I'm sure it's a frustrating job.

I've used it in your second example. It was one of those long and loaded trolling posts, "I'm going to tell all of you what I think, wait for your replies, so I can argue for the sake of arguing."

 

[StoneH]

It's all over the emails where I work, and is used as a courtesy, "here's the gist."
We also have the common email subject title "If you're not <interested in subject>, you can stop reading now."

During my last few years in the DoD, briefings and point papers routinely started with BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front). . . The first line was literally,

BLUF: XXXXX XX XXXXX

 

[oregomike]

During my last few years in the DoD, briefings and point papers routinely started with BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front). . . The first line was literally,

BLUF: XXXXX XX XXXXX

I like it!

 

[colchar]

During my last few years in the DoD, briefings and point papers routinely started with BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front). . . The first line was literally,

BLUF: XXXXX XX XXXXX

But what if they were only bluffing?

 

[Colo Springs E]

Not nearly as irritating (to me) than "SWMBO." Why not just type, 'yeah, she's got my balls in her purse and I'm okay telling the internet that.' You could always just say 'my wife' which is two keystrokes longer-- not like you're saving any time with that stupid abbreviation.

 

[Colo Springs E]

Um no, it wasn't. Intellectuals actively supported WW I as they believed that society needed to be renewed, and that the only way to do that was through war.

Wow, they sound really smart.

 

[maxvintage]

As a guy who tends to write long posts, a teacher, and a guy who writes books, I'm going to disagree. There's a lot of value in working to make your point with concision. In fact it's much more respectful to your audience.


I understand the disdain for laziness: I share it. But not all text mediums are the same--we don't expect a poster on a wall to work the same way as a newspaper article: we don't expect a newspaper article to do the same things as a book length account

 

[P Thought]

There's a lot of value in working to make your point with concision. In fact it's much more respectful to your audience.

Absolutely. I spent a too-short career losing the battle against aliteracy in the classrooms of Plundertown. I tried, among many other things, to teach very basic grammar--parts of speech, parts of the sentence, phrases, clauses--to 6 classfuls of sophomores a day. But I tried also to stress that the purpose of learning about grammar and composition, and of building vocabulary, was to improve our own powers of communication, not to go home and correct "grammer's" speech or spelling.

Most of all I tried to promote in students the adoption of a lifelong habit of reading books. English teachers notwithstanding, our real ability to read, write, and speak--I want to add imagine--is developed according to the reading we do. I just don't want someone's TLDR comment directed at some poor grammer to squelch anyone's efforts at developing ther own literacy.

I know the medium is the message, and the tweetmosphere promotes short messages, but for pity's sake, the longest posts possible on TDPRI are short pieces of writing. They might be disorganized or rambling, or they might have errors that are distracting or annoying, but they are not "too long (to) read".

Thass why I wish people would stop saying TLDR.

 

[57joonya]

Bulk-purchase, big bag of nuts to everyone who posts this arrogant, ignorant little snidety on anyone's post about anything.

These are the letters that will go on the flag of the Aliteracy Movement, the organization promoting the interests of people who can read and write, but who choose not to.

You want to belong to that group, fine. You choose then to stunt your own development. But why promote that stunting in others?

It's a rude, snotty comment, and it doesn't reflect well upon you, so please refrain from making it. This public service rant is brought to you on behalf of your English teacher, whoever s/he was.

I had to look up what tldr meant. I agree

 

[Telecaster88]

The thing that drives me crazy with TL;DR is that they didn't have enough time to read the thing, but they had enough time to add that semi-colon.

 

[P Thought]

The thing that drives me crazy with TL;DR is that they didn't have enough time to read the thing, but they had enough time to add that semi-colon.

I didn't know before, but there are apparently two TLDRs, and the semicolon distinguishes them from each other. Interesting.

I am hopeful that, rather than destroying mass literacy as we once knew it, the worldwide web, our new mass medium of information and communication, is able to develop its own mass literacy where complex language (= complex thought) is allowed to do its thing. So far, though, it appears not to be doing that, is why I'm still hawking books.

And @colchar, my fellow, I'm just a boy from Boonville, and a boomer I guess, kids grown, retired now. I been over myself a long time.

 

[thegaijin]

So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time