Regional variation in words

Sadly no, the second syllable is distinctly -yer.

 

lmao I gotta enunciate really carefully or it does kinda turn into that

 

I've never realized that I've been pronouncing it like loi-yer, but I totally do. Midwesterner from Chicagoland here.

How do you call a cat to come to you? I've always made little tongue clicks and extended my hand with my fingertips curled in and touching my thumb. I never though this might be cultural until my Polish friend called her cat over by making a "kish kish kish" sound. Does anyone actually go "Here kitty kitty kitty..."

My grandmother was from rural Iowa so she'd measure distance as "'bout as far as you can chuck a tater." No joke. Iowan and German. I was never quite sure if she was shitting me, but she was hilarious.

 

as a Midwesterner who grew up on a farm with barn cats-"here kitty kitty kitty"totally worked

you had to yell it though. let's see if I can get an approximation written down

"hhheeeeEEEEEEEEEEYR KIHDDEKIHDEKIHDEKIHDE"
sounded a little like a siren, and you roll your tongue for the d's

in a house, I just talk to animals like humans. with cats, I crouch and center body towards them while keeping my eyes pointed away, and have my arm and hand half heartedly reaching out. and my goal is always for the cat to sniff my fingers before pats happen.

with dogs, crouch and center entirely towards them, both hands visible and palms up. again, goal is for sniffing before I jump in with the pats.

....huh, I didn't realize that's a legitimate thing I do before I started talking it through, but it's an every time thing.

 

noooo, who would do that...
that's absurd. :B

 

Washingtonians, apparently. [brofist]

 

I do the tongue click but mines a bit higher pitched than others it seems. I also used to have a cat that would come when you whistled, but it was probably because i was imitating bird calls. She liked mouse squeaks too.

 

UPPER MIDWEST REPRESENT

 

I do all kinds of cat-luring sounds. If clicks aren't making it happen, switch to 'kitty kitty'. If that doesn't work, try their name. I also rub my fingertips together to make a skritchy sound.

Water fountains are water fountains >:o

 

For a nearby cat, a sort of ripple-y whistling hissing noise best transliterated as "hisswisswisswisswiss". For a cat of unknown location (usually outside), the rolling, high-pitched "heeeeeEEEEREKIHDYKHIDYKHIDY" described above, the 'd's barely-enunciated rolling stops between stressed and unstressed vowels. Rural Pennsylvania/Appalachia.

Anyone else say "can I borrow you/[name]" when you mean you want to talk to someone for a quick second?

 

bubblers are clearly bubblers
(ง •̀_•́)ง

(DISCOURSE!)

 

curb thy heathen tongue D:<

(lol.)
I've always just kind of. shouted. at cats? like 'HEY. HEY YOU. HOW DARE YOU BE SO CUTE' but I'm pretty sure that's a Bunjy thing, not a regional thing.

 

oh god lets not even get into the soda/pop thing there will be no survivors

 

I absolutely say the borrow thing.

I also do the "here kitty kitty" but it ends up like "heeeere keekeekeekeekee" in practice because i slur the whole thing together. An aunt once described it as "the cat version of the sooo-ey call for pigs".

Also this might have been mentioned before, but does anybody else say "can you cut out the lights" instead of turning them off? (I'm from SC, ftr.)

edit: also how do you pronounce salmon? I say "sah-mon" with a short a close-to-schwa sound, but my bf's aunt, from rural SC close to the GA border, says "salmon" with a long a sound and the L pronounced.

 

.......i aim for sodapop. or Coke if I want to be a dick about it.

i've entirely abandoned saying dinner/supper at this point. the areas i lived in michigan and wisconsin have different ways of using them for some reason???? so now i just say "food"

 

ugh yeah I grew up using Soda but lots of people here say Coke, and my relatives in indiana use something i call the Supper/Dinner Paradox where there's a meal at some point and all your relatives will be there so you better be presentable but hell if I know if it's gonna be lunchtime, the evening, or some weird freaking time like 4:30 pm sharp

 

"Sa-mən," in which "sa" is the first half of "sand". You know where I live :P

 

I say 'here kitty kitty kitty' for strange cats, call the names of cat's I know, and make rhythmatic clicking noises if neither of those work. I also use "can I borrow you" and so does my entire family.

Same hat!

 

I usually say something like "Hello there, you´re cute!" in a very soft kinda higher pitched voice to strange cats. My own cats I just call with their names.

 

I do this to greet cats! (Or nicknames and/or affectionate insults with my cats.) Actually summoning them via name does not work for The Horde :P