There is a scene I have come across and one of the characters is making a sound, kind of like a tsk, tsking sound, but I'm not sure how to write this. I've avoided this in my writing, because I've never known how to depict this accurately, but it's driving me crazy. We've all heard this sound. It's made almost as a gesture of "shame on you," but the sound is made with the tongue against the teeth. Almost like a bird chirping. Can someone help? Please.
His tongue clicks at the corner of his mouth in a wry, tsk-tsk way. His tongue clicks a shame-on-you note.
"Tsk" is widely used but I've no idea why - there's no 's' or 'k' sound anywhere near the sound. "Tut" is also common as is "Tch".
I think what you want, is the "clucking" sound. She clucked her tongue in disgust. Check out Youtube for "Tongue Clucking -grammarian" (Someone has "Tongue Clucking Grammarian" as a name?!?!).
Thanks everyone. @E.C. I'll look up the Grammarian on youtube. See if I can find something else. I'm not happy with writing "tsk, tsk..." It just doesn't sound right to me. When I make the sound myself, it's not clucking. It's the tip of my tongue on the back of my front teeth with with a quick downward motion. I may have to ask a linguist about it. Or find a writer who has actually depicted this correctly.
I found it. It's called a dental click in linguistic terminology. It is spelled 'tsk, tsk' in American spelling and 'tut, tut' in British spelling. I think I'm stuck with the 'tsk, tsk' as much as I dislike it. It is also referred to as tutting or clicking.
