''Teh'' is an
Internet slang neologism most frequently used as an English
article, based on a common
typographical error
A typographical error (often shortened to typo), also called a misprint, is a mistake (such as a spelling or transposition error) made in the typing of printed or electronic material. Historically, this referred to mistakes in manual typesettin ...
of "''
the
''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''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 speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formu ...
usages distinct from ''the''.
It is not common in spoken or written English outside technical or
leetspeak
Leet (or "1337"), also known as eleet or leetspeak, or simply hacker speech, 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 refle ...
circles, but when at the time at which it is spoken, it is pronounced , , or .
Usage
''Teh'' originates from the common
typo of
the word ''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, text expander or simply autocorrect, is an automatic data validation function commonly found in word processors and text editing interfaces for smartphones and tablet computer ...
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
Eye dialect is a writer's use of deliberately nonstandard spelling either because they do not consider the standard spelling a good reflection of the pronunciation or because they are intending to portray vernacular, informal or low-status language ...
).
References
External links
*
Internet slang
Nonstandard spelling
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