Teh

:"Also the Indonesian word for tea. ""Teh" is an English article based on a common misspelling of "the". A common typographical error, this typo became a part of Internet slang and subsequently developed grammatical usages distinct from "the".cite journal|last=Ross|first=Nigel|title=Writing in the Information Age| journal=English Today|volume=22|issue=3|pages=39–45|month=July | year=2006|doi=10.1017/S0266078406003063|accessdate=2007-07-06] When used in spoken language, it is sometimes pron-en|tɛ.cite book|last=LeBlanc| first=Tracy Rene|title="Is there a translator in teh house?": Cultural and discourse analysis of a virtual speech community on an internet message board|publisher=University of Louisiana at Lafayette|month=May | year=2005|url= http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04072005-145922/unrestricted/LeBlanc_thesis.pdf|accessdate=2007-07-06|format=PDF]

As a typo

"Teh" is one of the words in the auto-correct lists of spellcheckers in word processing applications such as Microsoft Word, OpenOffice.org Writer, Pages, and Corel WordPerfect. T and E are typed by the left hand on adjacent fingers in Qwerty, while the H is typed by the right, and in rapid typing, the T and E are often typed by the left hand in a drumming motion before the right can get the H in between the two. Overcompensating with the right hand can result in the misspelling "hte", which is also found in auto-correct lists.

As slang

Along with "pwn", "teh" is a standard feature of leetspeak.cite conference|first=Mirko|last= Tavosanis|title=A Causal Classification of Orthography Errors in Web Texts|booktitle=IJCAI-07 Workshop on Analytics for Noisy Unstructured Text Data (AND-07)|pages=99-106|publisher=International Association for Pattern Recognition|date=2007-01-08| location=Hyderabad, India|url=http://research.ihost.com/and2007/cd/Proceedings_files/p99.pdf|accessdate=2007-07-06|format=PDF] Originating from the common typo, it has become conventionalized in a variety of contexts. It is often used ironically,cite journal|last=Blashki|first=Katherine|coauthors=Sophie Nichol|title=Game Geek's Goss: Linguistic creativity in young males within an online university forum (94//3 933k'5 9055oneone)|journal=Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society|volume=3|issue=2|pages=77–86|year=2005|url=http://ojs.lib.swin.edu.au/index.php/ajets-test/article/viewFile/52/83|accessdate=2007-07-06] and can be used to mock someone's lack of techie knowledge or skills, as an insult, or to reinforce a group's elitism.

As slang, grammatical usage of the word "teh" is somewhat fluid. Besides being an alternate spelling of "the", "teh" also has grammatical properties not generally applied to "the"; in general, it is used somewhat like an intensified "the". The spelling derived from a typographical mistake seen as the symptom of excitement, much the same as the interjection of the numeral one between exclamation marks. It can be used with proper names, as in "teh John;" compare the usage of the definite article in Greek: ο Ιωαννης (o Ioannes), literally "The John". A similar usage comes from colloquial German, where the definite article is used as a specifier to modify the noun: "Der Johann", again literally, "The John", could be used to identify John, and not Phil, as the subject performing a certain action. In Latin, the similar word "ille" and its declensions, which was at first an intensified article usually translated as "that", is the source of the derivations of the simple word for "the" and the personal pronouns (he, etc.) in the languages derived from Latin.

Furthermore, "teh" can be used in front of a verb in a novel form of gerund, and it has the ability to turn nearly any word into an intensified noun, which can take the place of a superlative. The best-known example of this is the word "suck". Thus, the phrase "this sucks" can be converted into "this is teh suck" ("teh suck" being equivalent to the superlative "the suckiest"); the word "pwn" can be similarly converted ("teh pwn" or "teh pwnage"). The latter phrase is primarily used by the computer gaming community, and often intended humorously.

In English, "the" can be used as an intensifier for the superlative form of adjectives; compare "that is best" and "that is the best". "Teh" has a similar use as an intensifier for unmodified adjectives, generally marking a sarcastic tone. For example, "that is teh lame" translates as "that is the lamest". This is similar to the use of the definite article "el" in Spanish. For example, "Soy el mejor" (I am the best) and "I am teh good". This contrasts with the use of "the" in English to construct mass nouns (substantives) from adjectives, as in "blessed are the meek", where "the meek" denotes a class of people who are meek. On the other hand, "blessed are teh humble" would refer to an intensified group or individual who is "the most humble".

As a legitimate name

Due to the popular slang usage of "teh" in certain circles, particularly among software developers, it has been adopted as the formal name (or part thereof) of software projects. For example, in the realm of web-based applications, [http://teh.appspot.com/ TEH] is a minimalist blog engine written using Google App Engine. [http://spench.net/drupal/software/tehengine TEH Engine] is a prototype 3D game engine – "TEH" in this case is a recursive acronym for "TEH Extremely Hardcore" (making two references: one to the slang "teh" and the other to GNU).

In Popular Culture

In Family Guy Peter says "Teh" when talking to his wife Lois in episode 202, "A Family Computer."

References