twitterrati plus request

[Jonathan Lighter]

I don't see how a train whistle is relevant at all. Furthermore, engineers
blow the whistle "on" a locomotive, not "on" people.

JL

On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 4:47 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: twitterrati plus request
>
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>
> I have two citations from Life Magazine, 30 years apart--one from the
> 30s and one from the 60s. They are not hard to find, it's just that no
> one bothered to look. The first one is a union whistle-blower--i.e.,
> someone who blows the whistle for everyone to stop work (presumably for
> a strike, particularly for a sit-down strike rather than a walkout). The
> caption in GB is cut off, so there is still some work to do (like
> finding a hard copy or a full scan).
>
> The second is from the 60s and the whistle-blower is an associate of a
> Senator ally of LBJ. The Senator ended up in the middle of a major
> scandal and the associate blew the whistle on him when he did not
> receive what he was promised. This one is most certainly an antedating,
> but, I suspect, the earlier one points to the possible actual origin of
> the term (rather than referees blowing the whistle to stop play). Cop's
> whistle sounds a lot more plausible to me than sports origin (the latter
> sounds like folk etymology to me), but union whistle-blowers should not
> be ruled out without at least some investigation.
>
>      VS-)
>
> On 3/24/2013 11:00 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > "Whistle-blower" comes decades later than "blow the whistle on" (go
> figure)
> > which, as far as anyone has ever known, alludes to a policeman's whistle.
> >
> > This early ex., however, suggests otherwise. The (earlier) meaning here
> is
> > clearly to "oppose successfully; thwart decisively" rather than to
> "expose":
> >
> > 1916 George Ade in _Cosmopolitan_ (June) 42: Claude...had to blow the
> > Whistle on Friend Wife, who was getting ready to send Daughter to Europe
> > and put Son in Yale.
> >
> > JL
>
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