English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

Normally this will be used in msn or yahoo messenger

2007-08-22 20:31:12 · 3 answers · asked by Missi 1 in Education & Reference Words & Wordplay

3 answers

Usually, it is spelled with just one k - "tsk".
If you had to substitute words, you might say "for shame"

You probably know the sound -- the "sk" part can be confusing, because it does not sound like that... but English does not have any way of indicating the "alveolar click" (some dictionaries use /t!/ to indicate it), caused by an explosive release of the tongue from the roof of your mouth

If you still don't quite know what I'm describing, perhaps you've heard people imitate the ticking of seconds (as if impatiently counting time) with this sort of sound. In fact, you can HEAR the sound by going to this page and click on the audio link after the word -
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/tsk-tsk

Also, note that most of the time when people actually MAKE this sound, they do it several times in a row (and so may write "tsk tsk"), often while slowly shaking their head.

"tsk" is actually a fairly recent way to spell this sound. The older British representation is "tut" (or "tut-tut"). Compare the following dictionary entries:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tsk
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tut
http://cgi.peak.org/~jeremy/retort.cgi?British=tut

2007-08-23 05:12:56 · answer #1 · answered by bruhaha 7 · 0 0

tskkk (a t-like sound produced by suction rather than plosion; conventional spelling pronunciation, t¹sk) interj.

Used to express disappointment or sympathy.

A sucking noise made by suddenly releasing the tongue from the hard palate, used to express disappointment or sympathy.

2007-08-23 04:20:08 · answer #2 · answered by big_headed 2 · 0 0

it's kind of like a sound that you make when someone irritates you.....

2007-08-23 04:12:09 · answer #3 · answered by Devil 3 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers