4 ms·

Would it be so difficult to just write "the article?"

• dredmorbius 5y ago
  "TFA" is a well-known and long-standing usage within the hacker community. It came to prominance at Slashdot, which I'd read back in the day, and is at least some decades old. It refers specifically to the submitted article, and carries an overtone, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes subtle, sometimes more blunt, that the person being referred to ought to read the specific submitted work more closely. Perhaps at all. And without crossing HN's guidelines against specific accusations. That is, the meanings are similar but different. "TFA" is more concise and specific. All of which make it the more fabulous ;-) It turns out I do use both terms fairly frequently, as my comment history shows. The distinction is largely as I've described above. "The article" usually refers to some additional or other reference rather than the HN submission. "TFA" in the context if "you/I should have read that closely". TFA: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=1&prefix=true&query=by%3Adredmorbius%20%22TFA%22%20&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=1&prefix=true&que... "the article" https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=1&prefix=true&query=by%3Adredmorbius%20%22the%20article%22%20&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=1&prefix=true&que...