Whistling

“ A whistling, a clash and clatter—shivers of glass flew over their heads, and a long, dark something, like the shaft of a lance, sped past them, knocked against something, rebounded, and fell at their feet. ”

“ One man told us, among other things in a memorable address, to “whistle when you’re happy and whistle when you’re in danger of feeling mad. Whistling gives courage, like yells at a football game. Whistle, boys, whistle. It’s a sign that your courage is good!” ”

“ The hideous sound filled all the room with an extraordinary, grotesque parody of human whistling, too gigantic to be human—as if something gargantuan and monstrous made the sounds softly. As I stood there a last moment, pressing down the final seal, I had no doubt but that I had come across one of those rare and horrible cases of the Inanimate reproducing the functions of the Animate, I made a grab for my lamp, and went quickly to the door, looking over my shoulder, and listening for the thing that I expected. ”

“ I can hear yet the crooning of the pigeons in the eaves, and the slatey sound of their wings as they flew across the open spaces in the great barn; I can smell yet the odour of the hay.
But with years, and the city, and the shame of youth, I put aside and almost forgot the art of whistling. When I was preparing for the present pilgrimage, however, it came to me with a sudden thrill of pleasure that nothing in the wide world now prevented me from getting a whistle and seeing whether I had forgotten my early cunning. ”

“ To whistle by night is one of the unpardonable sins amongst the fishermen of St Ives. My correspondent says, “I would no more dare go among a party of fishermen at night whistling a popular air than into a den of untamed tigers.”
No miner will allow of whistling underground. I could never learn from the miners whether they regarded it as unlucky or not. I rather think they feel that whistling indicates thoughtlessness, and they know their labour is one of danger, requiring serious attention. ”

“ In some districts of North Germany the villagers say that if one whistles in the evening it makes the angels weep. Speaking, however, of ladies in connection with whistling, it is a widespread superstition that it is at all times unlucky for them to whistle, which, according to one legend, originated in the circumstance that, while the nails for our Lord's cross were being forged, a woman stood by and whistled. ”

“ Whistling was hardly in native use as a way of producing a tune, though a song might be whistled without words. In the Banks' Islands there is a way of whistling a man's name to call him, woswos-loglog. ”

“ The whistling of the male is more acute than that of the female: it is performed through the nostrils, and is no more than a very strong blowing, and resembles the noise which a man would make by fixing his tongue to the palate, keeping the teeth nearly shut, the lips open, and a little lengthened, and blowing with all his force. ”

“ As the action of blowing wind-instruments is the same as that of whistling, the effects should be the same. Whistling has been popularly styled the "devil's music," the reason, in all probability, being that, when persons are up to anything wrong and likely to be caught, they assume an air of indifference by whistling. ”

“ By the way, there is a curious thing I forgot to tell you. I tried to get a phonographic record of the whistling; but it simply produced no impression on the wax at all. That is one of the things that has made me feel queer, I can tell you. Another extraordinary thing is that the microphone will not magnify the sound—will not even transmit it; seems to take no account of it, and acts as if it were non-existent. I am absolutely and utterly stumped, up to the present. I am a wee bit curious to see whether any of your dear clever heads can make daylight of it. ”

“ Just how Haw-Haw learned to whistle Rick never found out. Certainly the boy did not cut the crow's tongue, and perhaps whistling came natural to the black bird. And it may be that it was not a regular "whistle" at all, but merely a sound like that. Of course a bird has no lips to pucker [Pg 153] up and whistle with, as boys have, and some girls, too. But many birds utter whistling notes when they sing, or give their calls. The quail, or Bob White, seems to whistle, and so does the Whip-poor-will. And I have heard many men who can, by whistling with their tongue and lips, imitate many birds. ”

“ Tassoc began right in the middle of his story. 'We've got a room in this shanty,' he said, 'which has got a most infernal whistling in it; sort of haunting it. The thing starts any time; you never know when, and it goes on until it frightens you. All the servants have gone, as you know. It's not ordinary whistling, and it isn't the wind. ”

“ Kluge: “Deutsche Etymologie.”
856. The whistling and snapping is a tasteless, archaic relic, an allurement for the theriomorphic divinity, probably also an infantile reminiscence (quieting the child by whistling and snapping) . Of similar significance is the roaring at the divinity. (“Mithr. Lit.,” p. 13) : “You are to look at him and give forth a long roar, as with a horn, using all your breath, pressing your sides, and kiss the amulet ... etc.” “My soul roars with the voice of a hungry lion,” says Mechthild von Magdeburg. ”

“ They go on whistling after they are dry. You see, the trouble with the whistles other people [Pg 36] make for me, is that they shrivel all up by next day, and there isn't a bit of whistle left in them."
"That's the way with most of my whistles, too, Namesake. And then I throw them away and want new ones. Heigh-ho! What's the use of a whistle when all the whistle has gone out of it? I must ask Mr. Frank Morton how he makes his."
I gave a jump and a little squeak.
"Oh, Cousin Molly Belle! there's a great, big race-horse on you!" ”

“ A man or woman of eccentric habits, perhaps, or a stranger, is seen repeatedly on the beach at some unusual hour, and is heard whistling. Soon afterwards a violent wind rises; a man who could read the sky perfectly or who possessed a barometer could have foretold that it would. The simple people of a fishing-village have no barometers, and only a few rough rules for prophesying weather. ”

“ In a letter to a friend in 1779, Franklin tells the story, "The
Whistle." "An Ax to Grind" is from his autobiography.
THE WHISTLE When I was a child seven years old, my friends on a holiday filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children, and, being charmed with the sound of a whistle that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then ran home and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. ”

“ We hoped the teachers and Miss Plympton were safe in their downies and we trusted in Mr. Ryan's superstitious nature to keep him out of the Gym.
The ghost dance began later and was kept up buoyantly, without music except a weird rhythmic whistling that the dancers themselves furnished. This whistling is done by sucking in and never blowing out and the effect is most uncanny. It is very hard on your wind to whistle this way, but [87] when your breath gives out, your partner picks up the tune where you leave off and keeps the ball rolling. ”

“ Indeed, few subjects have given rise to a greater variety of popular every-day sayings than whistling. Thus the expression, to "pay for one's whistle"—a favorite phrase with George Eliot—means to gratify one's fancy. Again, a thing worthy of notice is said in common parlance to be "worth the whistle"; the reference obviously being to the ordinary way of calling up a dog. Heywood, for instance, in one of is proverbs, says, "It is a poor dog that is not worth the whistling." Shakespeare, too, makes Goneril say to Albany, in "King Lear" (Act iv, scene 2) :
"I have been worth the whistle." ”

“ The only way I can explain the instantaneous change of flight is by the assumption, no longer strange or untested, that from some alarmed plover on the fringe or at the center of the flock a warning impulse is sent out, and the birds all feel and obey it as one bird. That the warning is a silent one I am convinced, for it seems impossible that any peculiar whistle could be heard or understood in that wild clamor of whistling. Nor is it a satisfactory hypothesis that one bird sees the danger or suspects the quality of the decoys, and all the others copy his swift flight ”

“ I don't know when I ever learned to dance. I didn't learn, it just came to me; but the best thing I do is whistling. I'm not afraid of any man in the business when it's a case of whistling. There's no fake about my whistle; it's the real thing. I can whistle any sort of music that goes.”
“Your company appears in Baltimore this week?”
“Oh, no! I've left the company. You see, I've been off for six weeks on account of illness, and now I'm going over to Baltimore to my father's funeral. He is to be buried to-morrow. ”

“ The flute, flageolet, humming-top, and the cavity of the mouth in whistling, may be considered as simple wind instruments, in which the quality of the sound is alone determined by the vibrations of the air. I have already explained the manner in which the oscillations of a string excite aërial undulations, and thus produce sound ”

“ It would be as reasonable to claim that the carpenter on the roof is whistling to please his sweetheart or that the lumberman alone with his cattle in the forest trolls forth his jolly song for any amorous reason. There are times when these purposes are the cause of singing, but the fact is that the great majority of the singing and whistling done by men, birds, and beasts sounds far better to the ones that produce it than to any other. ”

“ It is true that when the snipe are near at hand and about alighting, a lower whistle is better, for the reason that it is more perfect, and because the cry changes to a note of welcome when the flock receives its fellows. And often, when the birds once head for the stools, if not distracted by neighboring stands, or alarmed, they will come straight on without any whistling, although this is by no means invariably the case.
Many persons find insuperable difficulty in whistling the clear, shrill, sharp calls ”

“ It’s whistling loud still, so you’ve got heaps of time. There’s more time than luggage.’
‘But doesn’t its whistling mean that it’s just going off?’ asked David. He had a firm idea in his mind that he must catch the 11.29, or the whole plan would go wrong.
‘Not a bit of it, dearie,’ said the cow. ‘It whistles loudest when it’s going to stop longest, and whistles faintest when it’s going to stop shortest. Now if it was whistling soft, we should have to hurry. The moment it stops whistling altogether, then it’s off, and you have to wait for the next. ”

“ Contestants are lined up facing the crowd. If they can whistle it is infinitely funnier to use the whistling contest. If they cannot whistle let them sing a high note. In either case, at a signal, they start to whistle or sing, and the one who can hold her note the longest without taking another breath gets a toy balloon as a prize. ”

“ I do not suggest that whistling is a necessary ingredient for the motherhood of the new race; but, as a matter of fact, I have noticed that those women who whistle well have, as a rule, strength of character, originality, the gift of initiative and a strong organising capacity ”

“ It is recorded of her that she would never employ a man unless he could whistle. So that when he was sent to draw beer, or to bottle wine, or to pick cherries, or to gather strawberries, by whistling all the time he proved that his mouth was empty, because you cannot whistle with anything in your mouth. ”

“ You were whistlin' just now up in the barn chamber; that's one of the things I won't have round my premises,—a whistlin' girl.”
“'T was a Sabbath-School hymn that I was whistling!” This with a creditable imitation of defiance.
“That don't make it any better. Sing your hymns if you must make a noise while you're workin'.”
“It's the same mouth that makes the whistle and sings the song, so I don't see why one's any wickeder than the other.”
“You don't have to see,” replied the Deacon grimly; “all you have to do is to mind when you're spoken to. Now run 'long 'bout your work.” ”

“ Experiments have shown that do and mi in particular have a round, full, well-supported sound, which in the Baduel regulation whistle can be heard for a distance of more than six hundred metres.
Competent observers have asserted that the manner of whistling is not always the same, and that there are some unhappy persons who can not whistle at all. ”

“ Whistling is also practised in a variety of other ways, and has peculiar sounds well known to the natives, which indicate the object of the call. It is used to call attention, to point out that game is near, to make each other aware of their respective positions in a wooded country, or to put another on his guard that an enemy is near, etc., etc. ”

“ Never whistle while waiting for someone to play. Whistling is not in good taste. Go over and bite out a couple of tunes on the piano.
When your opponent trumps an ace don't ever hit him carelessly across the forehead with the bric-a-brac. Always remember when you are in Society that bric-a-brac is expensive. ”

“ But in a larger sense, one that this practical age can understand, it is not true that the whistling girl comes to a bad end. Whistling pays. It has brought her money; it has blown her name about the listening world. Scarcely has a non-whistling woman been more famous. ”

“ IN whatever way regarded, either as a graceful accomplishment or as the spontaneous expression of light-heartedness, whistling has in our own and foreign countries generally attracted considerable attention. Why it should have been invested with so much superstitious awe it is difficult to say, but it is a curious fact that the same antipathy which it arouses among certain classes of our own countrymen is found existing in the most distant parts of the earth, where, as yet, civilization has made little or imperceptible progress. ”