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Comment by YeGoblynQueenne | Hacker News Reader

Wait, "pspspsps"? Where are you from? I thought only Greeks do "pspspsps".

I've heard that my whole life in the US. I think my dad taught it to me when I was really young, because he loves cats and our neighbors across the street had some outdoor cats.

Growing up in the Midwest it was always kitty kitty kitty kitty KITTY with the last one said at the top of your lungs.

No idea why it worked. It's terrifying.

Probably worked because the cats grew up with it too!

We do it in Italy too, afair (I'm a bit in doubt if we also do "tch tch tch")

Australia also uses pspspsps - at least my part of it and my family and friends.

(and for some Australians some of the time, "ps ps fuckin ps, ya cunting cat!" of course. ;- ) )

"Cunting"! Not just "cunt" but "cunting"! I learned so much from this thread! :D

No, it's somewhat common here in Brazil too.

pspspsps is biological , it's common noise to get a cats attention (in many places) because it stimulates their prey drive.

maybe the phoneme sequence of plosive -> sibilant is easy to discern from background noise?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plosive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibilant

We also do it in Spain, I think it is the international cat calling code.

That's a worldwide thing, as well as other stupid human noises ;)

Tch tch tch

It’s very common in the USA.

I think it has become common, but I never heard it until a few years ago. Now it's seemingly everywhere. When I was a kid, it was just "Here kitty kitty" or making a clicking noise with your tongue or something.

> making a clicking noise with your tongue or something

I still do that today, and it works better than pspspspsps. When I was young, if my cat was outside on the porch I could click my tongue and he'd come running from a half block away. What a good kitty he was.

All of the US and some of Canada does pspspsps

wait where in Canada do they don't do pspspsps?

(is there a francophone different one?)

I'm just talking from my experience but francophone areas do it differently.

They do ttttt (tongue at top of mouth clicking), kissing noise (as a non frank lol), or 'minou minou minou' (mimicking meow) to summon cats

Well it seems everyone uses that! Thanks guys, I had no idea and this is so interesting to know. Now I wonder if someone has made some kind of study about it. I'll go looking.

I'm from America, and we do spspspsp.

And Romanians.

My German grandmother did it, too.

We do it on the United Kingdom

Where in the UK? I've lived in the UK, in the Southeast, for 21 years and I never heard anyone say "pspsps".

I mean I don't doubt you, I just thought Brits just say "here kitty kitty" because that's what I usually see in movies and TV shows and so on.

It's funny what you miss when you're not embedded in the culture of a place since birth...

I'm from Liverpool (70s/80s/90s), and of course I've heard "here kitty" but "pspsps" equally as common during my time in London (90s/00s), Cornwall(10s/20s), etc.

I always thought "pspsps" was a shortened form of "here pussy, pussy, pussy".

It's common. But I tend to find people in the south east of England barely talk to one another. :)

Oh yeah, that. But I'm a bloody foreigner so I get to speak to other bloody foreigners :)

Can confirm that non-greek Americans do this as well.

We do it in America

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