Antedating of "tl;dr"

[Ben Zimmer]

Thanks to Hugo for finding these early cites, which antedate what we
provided in the Winter 2011 installment of "Among the New Words"
(Interenet meme edition): http://bit.ly/ATNW86-4

--bgz


On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 10:13 AM, Hugo wrote:
>
> "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
>
>
> ---
>
> 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
>
> ---
>
> The earliest I found is from 6 November 2002:
>
> [Begin]
> tl;dr
> summary?
> [End]
>
>
> ---
>
> 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
>
> ---
>
> Hugo

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