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TK, or the secret to effortless writing (2024)

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Re: TK, or the secret to effortless writing (2024)

#3
I've a very dim memory of having heard about it years ago (more than a decades), from an article of Cory Doctorow, and in my mind, he was the one who came up with the idea (and chose the letters TK).

But I can be wrong (maybe it's not from Doctorow, maybe the article did not even claim the paternity of coming up with TK but it was me badly understanding it, ...)

Re: TK, or the secret to effortless writing (2024)

#4
post #3

I've a very dim memory of having heard about it years ago (more than a decades), from an article of Cory Doctorow, and in my mind, he was the one who came up with the idea (and chose the letters TK). But I can be wrong (maybe it's not from Doctorow, maybe the article did not even claim the paternity of coming up with TK but it was me badly understanding it, ...)

TK is a very standard term, see William Safire's usage in this 1996 NY Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/06/magazine/of-hacks-and-tk....

Re: TK, or the secret to effortless writing (2024)

#7
post #3

I've a very dim memory of having heard about it years ago (more than a decades), from an article of Cory Doctorow, and in my mind, he was the one who came up with the idea (and chose the letters TK). But I can be wrong (maybe it's not from Doctorow, maybe the article did not even claim the paternity of coming up with TK but it was me badly understanding it, ...)

TK is a very standard term, see William Safire's usage in this 1996 NY Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/06/magazine/of-hacks-and-tk....

Mmm. This Q&A -- https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/M... -- suggests it's been kicking around as printing and journalism jargon since at least the 1980s, and I would expect probably earlier.

Re: TK, or the secret to effortless writing (2024)

#8
post #3

I've a very dim memory of having heard about it years ago (more than a decades), from an article of Cory Doctorow, and in my mind, he was the one who came up with the idea (and chose the letters TK). But I can be wrong (maybe it's not from Doctorow, maybe the article did not even claim the paternity of coming up with TK but it was me badly understanding it, ...)

TK is a very standard term, see William Safire's usage in this 1996 NY Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/06/magazine/of-hacks-and-tk....

Paywall-free link:

https://archive.is/Ipm3J

Re: TK, or the secret to effortless writing (2024)

#10
Could you instead use any two numerical digits? Then you've got a tagging system with up to 100 tags.

This assumes you're writing according to guidelines that insist you spell out all numbers. i.e. 58 is always intentionally "fifty-eight", so "58" must be your own meta text.

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