With thanks to GalleyCat, I have a new internet phrase–TLDR. Clearly TLDR has been out and about a long while. So it’s not that I’m hip or anything throwing it out there. TLDR = too long; didn’t read. Awesome. Should have tried that on Foucault’s translated texts way back in Sociology at uni. Though to be honest that would have been TCDR = too confusing, didn’t read. (Well I tried to read. Didn’t understand.)

Anyway, TLDR started me thinking. How long is too long? Pieces of string came to mind. But the thing with string is there is a perfect length–it depends on the task the string will be used for.

In that case, TLDR is really an observation that a writer’s insight (message, whatever) has collapsed under the weight of their words.