TL;DR: This Meme Must Die

I've tried to figure out how on earth this ugly word (phrase?) "TL;DR" came to exist.

My best guess is the usual guess: Either it isn't really a synonym for "summary", or it used to not be a synonym but its original intent wore away over time until it became a synonym.

In this case, "summary" is a neutral term. You can summarize good writing, you can summarize bad writing, and the word "summary" conveys no critical judgement. Whereas my impression is that "TL;DR" was invented not just to summarize but also to criticize: The term suggests that the original is needlessly verbose, and tends to imply that reading the whole original is a pointless waste of time.

But my other impression is that the distinction between a "TL;DR" and a simple "summary" is eroding. This sort of thing can happen when a meme spreads far enough beyond the subculture that invented it: Folks pick up the gist, but miss the subtle colorations. Now I see writers TL;DRing things that are actually good, as a matter of routine. Which makes me suspect (or, at least, hope) that the meme's fifteen minutes of fame will soon be over and we'll go back to using "summary" again.

TL;DR can't be replaced with just "Summary", because it carries much more meaning than that. It's a preemptive retort to any criticism that the original text is too long. You need to understand the full evolution of the term before dismissing its value: It originated from commenters telling an author the text is too long or needs better formatting. Its use as a summary prefix acknowledges and sidesteps this issue.

Rather than simply saying, "Here's a short summary," TL;DR says, "I know this is long and you probably hate me for it, so here's a short summary to mitigate your unhappiness."

I think that TL;DR is a great practice for writers, and it doesn't matter how you label it.

TL;DR apparently originated on MetaFilter, which I can totally see happening. The sort of esoteric abbreviation coupled with a semicolon would definitely come from there. However, it started as a response to extremely long & rambling posts. Then, TL;DR became used by writers to capture attention-span-challenged denizens.

That being said, TL;DR works pretty well at popping on the page. Being acceptably allcaps, it easily pops out when you're skimming, even if it's in the middle of a paragraph.

Also, I notice that if I'm skimming something pretty interesting, and notice a point of a TL;DR statement that I missed, I'm strongly prompted to go back and read it again. Not that "Summary" wouldn't do this, but it's almost more insulting.

All of this being said, you there are ways you can avoid the issue altogether. If you just more tersely with short paragraphs and bullet points, you can trick people into actually reading. Or, start out your rambling rant with whatever you were going to put as your TL;DR: people generally read the first sentence.

People also read the last thing. Did you skim this comment?

TLDR: use 'Summary' instead of TLDR.

;)

Tbh, I'd rather use tldr b/c it's shorter, even if only by 3 characters. And like most acronyms, once you've looked it up once you never forget. But 'summary' is definitely more semantic.

I always thought TL;DR was more dismissive than "Summary"

I think tl;dr differs from a summary in that it is written as a response to hostility coming from someone who thinks the post is verbose. When I have seen it used, it has consistently been more terse and to the point than summaries generally are. It may seem awkward and inaccessible to those unfamiliar with it, but I do think it is a specific enough form of a summary to warrant its own term.

TL;DR also breaks my brain's English parser. Bad. In the same way that reading .NET in an otherwise legal English sentence tends to annoy me. Character not expected! Abort! Stack trace!

Good luck single-handedly destroying a meme created by the INTERNET.

TL;DR

The Russian version of tl;dr is niasilil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacography