Question for you all: teeth sucking... have you witnessed it? I see it in books all the time and understand it's an expression of anger, but have never seen it used that way in real life. I've only seen it when someone reacts to hearing about a painful injury. I got a partial answer from Google: a blog post says it is an expression of annoyance in West Africa (this novel takes place in East Africa so probably close enough). But......👇
Billypar ..... I've seen U.S.-born characters do this action all the time. So I guess my question is - have you seen angry teeth-sucking in real life, and if so, where are you from? Curious if it's something seen in different countries, regions, and/or cultures. Thanks in advance! 🕵️♂️ 2y
Billypar Blog post: https://www.ankataa.com/blog/suck-teeth-in-west-africa 2y
Billypar For future reference: #teethsuck #suckedherteeth #suckedhisteeth 2y
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Texreader I‘ve never seen or even heard of it! Interesting. And yes I‘m from Texas 😁 2y
Billypar @Texreader I think I used to just skip over it when reading without giving it much thought, and then it came up in a book podcast I listen to, but just in a 'what's the deal with that?' way, no conclusions drawn. Then I started seeing it everywhere in books but still nowhere in life (I'm from New Jersey and have also lived in New York and Pennsylvania). 2y
Texreader @Billypar And odds are now I‘ll start seeing it in book! I‘ll let you know 🤔 2y
Ruthiella It‘s placing your tongue behind your top teeth and sucking in. It makes a kind of “tsk” sound. 2y
Billypar @Texreader So true, right? Much appreciated! 😬😀 2y
Billypar @Ruthiella You made me realize I should have YouTubed it. The first video was from Jamaica - I don't think I've heard the sound before, and I guess over there they call it 'kiss my teeth' and spell it 'pschew'. More videos mention the expression as uniquely Carribbean. Still, I feel as though I've read plenty of characters doing it outside of that cultural context. And always 'suck teeth', never 'kiss' 😕 2y
Billypar A little from Reddit on it: https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/c7id5s/the_origin_of_teethsucking/ 2y
vivastory I'm so glad that you posted about this ?? I've seen this in several books and although I "understood" it I still found the description very puzzling!! 2y
Billypar @vivastory Seeing videos made me realize it was not the sound I was picturing in my head! Everything I can find on the internet says African and Carribbean cultural usage. It's most likely that this has been true in books too, and I just never noticed it was just characters from these cultures doing it. Still, I can't shake the idea that there's some kind of authorial appropriation going on, and it's spread further in books as a result 🤷🏻 2y
Reggie What @ruthiella said. Also, this was very common in that judgement that comes from family especially the aunts who knew you did wrong. At least in my family. 2y
batsy Yes! Super common within certain modes of interaction (having extreme familiarity with each other) while I was growing up. Now—not so much, interestingly enough. This is Malaysia, for context, and largely among the Malaysian Indian community. 2y
Billypar @Reggie Yeah, from the videos I saw, it's very different than I was imagining (and now I'm wondering, does that response to hearing about an injury that I thought was sucking teeth have a name? Lol). Interesting too that it's more common in family judgments that @batsy observed also. And that it might be on the decline in usage. I'd like to find more about it - so far I've just got a couple posts, videos, and an article from the 1970s. 2y
Centique I love this kind of question! Thanks for such an interesting discussion and I went down a YouTube hole myself 😂 In terms of the name of that response to injury sound, the best “name” for it I could find was “inhaling through gritted teeth”. Fascinating to think out about different noises/gestures that are outside of spoken language but instantly recognisable within a culture. I hope there‘s a book on this someday. 2y
Billypar @Centique I'm always happy to lead others down rabbit holes ? It is interesting when there's no good name for something recognizable - maybe four words is one too many for describing one action? One other phrase in this realm is "clucked his/her tongue", sometimes with "in sympathy" added. But I don't see it in novels from recent decades and maybe often less in real life too? 2y
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