Antedating of "tl;dr"

Hugo hugovk at GMAIL.COM
Fri Aug 30 14:13:01 UTC 2013


"TL;DR" has been added to Oxford Dictionaries Online in the August quarterly update (not yet in OED):
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/august-2013-update/

ODO, "early 21st century"
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/TLDR?q=TL%3BDR

Urban Dictionary, March 2003
http://tldr.urbanup.com/57118

Know Your Meme, nothing earlier than UD
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tldr


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This recent Something Awful thread says "tl;dr" was invented on their boards and links to several early uses.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3567411

I can't access all of them because some require a paid account. They also point out a September 2002 example of the full "too long didn't read" that predated the abbreviation.

28 November 2002:

[Begin]
I thought that my thread from yesterday was direly in need of a prologue, so, here we are. First person to give me a tl, dr gets an earful of hot, wet, sloppy mountain goat poo poo.
[End]

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=320583

1 November 2002, but I can't access it:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=296548

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The earliest I found is from 6 November 2002:

[Begin]
tl;dr
summary?
[End]


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And the earliest full version I found is from 25 July 2002:

[Begin]
Too long. Didn't read. Actually, wait, I did. It was really funny. Good show, sir.
[End]
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=206038&pagenumber=1

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Hugo

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