''Teh'' is an

Internet slang Internet slang (also called Internet shorthand, cyber-slang, netspeak, digispeak or chatspeak) is a non-standard or unofficial form of language used by people on the Internet to communicate to one another. An example of Internet slang is "LOL" m ...

neologism A neologism Ancient_Greek.html"_;"title="_from_Ancient_Greek">Greek_νέο-_''néo''(="new")_and_λόγος_/''lógos''_meaning_"speech,_utterance"is_a_relatively_recent_or_isolated_term,_word,_or_phrase_that_may_be_in_the_process_of_entering_com ...

most frequently used as an English

article Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: ...

, based on a common

typographical error A typographical error (often shortened to typo), also called a misprint, is a mistake (such as a spelling mistake) made in the typing of printed (or electronic) material. Historically, this referred to mistakes in manual type-setting (typography) ...

of "''

the ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

".'' ''Teh'' has subsequently developed

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular variety (linguistics), speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the go ...

usages distinct from ''the''. It is not common in spoken or written English outside technical or

leet Leet (or "1337"), also known as eleet or leetspeak, is a system of modified spellings used primarily on the Internet. It often uses character replacements in ways that play on the similarity of their glyphs via reflection or other resemblance ...

speak circles, but when spoken, it is pronounced , , or .

Usage

''Teh'' originates from the common

typo A typographical error (often shortened to typo), also called a misprint, is a mistake (such as a spelling mistake) made in the typing of printed (or electronic) material. Historically, this referred to mistakes in manual type-setting (typography) ...

of ''the'', as might both occur and remain uncorrected when a person was typing rapidly prior to the widespread availability of

autocorrect Autocorrection, also known as text replacement, replace-as-you-type or simply autocorrect, is an automatic data validation function commonly found in word processors and text editing interfaces for smartphones and tablet computers. Its principal ...

helper applications, and has become conventionalized in a variety of contexts. In addition, it is a standard feature of leetspeak and can be used ironically or to mock someone's lack of " techie" knowledge or skills, as an insult, or to reinforce a group's elitism; cf. eye dialect.

References

External links

* Internet slang Leet Nonstandard spelling {{English-lang-stub