
Don’t Blame the Internet for New Slang - emptybits
https://thewalrus.ca/dont-blame-the-internet-for-bad-slang/
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raek
For you language nerds: the author Gretchen McCulloch also hosts a podcast,
Lingthusiasm! ([https://lingthusiasm.com/](https://lingthusiasm.com/))

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eumenides1
Gretchen's book Because Internet, is fantastic. It was riveting and helped me
get over a ton of personal grammatical hang-ups I have. The audiobook is
amazing, go borrow it at your library!

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_Microft
What is the idea or purpose of TL;DR and TL;DW by the way? Both basically mean
_summary_ , so it is not that there is a new meaning that we needed to express
somehow. It still catched on.

So what _is_ its purpose? Should it give the author and audience a sense of
belonging to the online world? Dissociating from people not belonging to the
online world yet ("Neuland", anyone?). Just using it for teh lulz? Making
things sound informal or less serious?

My experience is that I perceive articles preceded with _' Summary'_ instead
of _' tl;dr'_ as much more no-bs-ty.

Edit: "Neuland" is referring to Ms. Merkel's "The internet is uncharted
territory" comment by the way.

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SuperGent
I always thought that TL;DR was a flippant statement that the post you have
made was too long. This seems to have morphed into 'For those who think that
this is too long...' often just the important parts, which is usually a
summery. I'm sure someone could make a point about using FAQ, etc

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_Microft
Thanks! So it started as complaint and only then took on the role as label for
a summary. That explains it somewhat.

