"teh" + adj./v.

[Chris Waigl]

Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

>Blogs these days are full of examples of "teh", an intentional misspelling
>of "the" arising from leetspeak (hacker code). Unlike "the", "teh" often
>modifies an adjective (teh sexy, teh crazy, teh funny, teh wacky, teh
>lame, teh gay), or an intransitive verb (teh suck, teh rock, teh rule).
>The resulting quasi-NP tends to be used predicatively ("he is teh sexy" =
>"he is sexy", "you are teh rule" = "you rule", etc.).
>
>

I think there's a bit more to it than just "A has the characteristic B".
It can be "A is the epitome of B" or "A is too B for my taste" or "i'm
impressed that A has the characteristic B". As far as I can tell, there
is an element of judgement, jocularity or self-deprecating posturing
involved.

Below are some examples from my IRC logs. These are from a serious
channel dedicated to blogging software. Most of the time, the
participants write perfectly normal English (and some can be downright
prescriptivist about grammar). They are between their late teens and
their forties.

Last, I asked the users of "teh" how they would pronounce it. After some
difficulties ("it's not supposed to be said") they opted for unreduced
("I'd kinda pronounce it like 'thee/they'" / "'tea' with a soft 't',
like 'thump'").

Chris Waigl



[wishful musings:]
drag and drop ajax chess would be teh l33t
not if we have teh uber hosting of wordpress.org :o)
that'd be teh kewl
that would be teh awesome

[interjections of frustration:]
iconography is teh hard
i'm teh lazy
ie7 is teh bulky
ie is teh sux0r
TextMate is teh rule
FF/mac is teh buggy
that link is teh slow ;)
ibooks are teh sux
js = teh sux0r
computers are teh suckx
my computer is teh suck
spammers are teh suxk.
phpmyadmin is teh gross
god, those form widgets are teh ugly

[sarcastic comment about an unpleasant piece of spam:]
btw, yeah. half-asian chicks are teh h4wt

[slighly self-conscious or ironic announcements of successes:]
htmlspecialchars() and stripslashes() are teh best
it'll be teh pwn
jalenack is teh css jedi!
Isn't teh intarweb wunnerful?
Firas, teh magic!
Firas pwnz0red teh regex!1
my bot is teh rawk
is it teh m0st awesomest thing evar?
firas can do teh ajax!!11 now