Transcription A Bluesky post from "Slippy", @damnslippy.slippy.me, with a profile picture of a woman with short, purple hair holding a knife: Sincerely delighted to discover, 45 minutes into this nearly-wordless three-hour documentary about French monks who take vows of silence, that among the reasons they \\\can\\\ talk is "to make sure the monastery cats know when it's mealtime by making little kitty-calling noises at them." :::
Only it was probably not “pspspsp” because as a French speaker, I’ve never understood that English onomatopoeia. It doesn’t make that sound in French. When I try to get the attention of a cat or another animal, it’s usually more of a “dzkdzkdzk” or “tzktzk” sound. A bit like the sound of a kiss but made with tapping the tongue on the roof of the mouth instead of with the lips.
Pspsps is like how a cartoon calls a cat, from my American perspective. As a kid we called cats with a tsktsk sound, clicking tongue against the roof of the mouth behind the front top teeth, as you say. But I hear people use pspsps more now irl so it bled into reality.
I grew up yelling out “HEERRRRE KITTYKITTYKITTYKITYY!”
Pspspsps is come here, tsktsktsk is get the fuck away from that; the latter sounds like a spray bottle