More Than 80 Cultures Still Speak in Whistles

Smithsonian ^ | Bob Holmes

[BenLurkin]

[BenLurkin]

ping

[escapefromboston]

I used to talk to women with whistles but now I guess they call that sexual harassment

[albie]

Biden speaks with whistles. To little girls.

[COBOL2Java]

Whistling is part of the Brooklyn dialect

[I want the USA back]

I’ve been speaking in whistles too, ever since I lost that front tooth.

[rdl6989]

Bookmark

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Mr. Herbert on “Family Guy” speaks with whistles, too, but I think it’s because his dentures don’t fit.

[House Atreides]

“I used to talk to women with whistles…”
******************************************
I still talk to my dogs with whistles.

[qwerty1234]

>>I used to talk to women with whistles but now I guess they call that sexual harassment

lol, beat me to it.

[proud American in Canada]

Something tells me that these are not the most advanced cultures on the planet.

IOW, not expecting a whistled “Hamlet” or “Twelfth Night” anytime soon.

[PLMerite]

Everybody beat me to it, but a picture helps...

[proud American in Canada]

LOL. That’s funny. :)

Not being a man, that wasn’t my first thought, but the younger me might have thought of it, having occasionally been on the receiving end of an admiring whistle.

I have mixed feelings about the “wolf whistle.” The younger me might have felt admired, but also maybe a bit afraid, especially if I were walking alone.

The 58 year old me would be flattered and disbelieving. Just as I am if anyone ever calls me “miss.” A young man called me “miss” a while ago and I told him, “You have made my day.”

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Something tells me that these are not the most advanced cultures on the planet.

Yep. Those Greeks were SO primitive and NEVER wrote anything of merit.

Really?

[BenLurkin]

It’s basically the same as yodeling.

[proud American in Canada]

That picture is priceless. If you’ve ever seen “The King of Queens” with Kevin James and Leah Remini—and Jerry Stiller (very funny show), you may have seen the episode where Carrie turns 30.

She freaks out, feeling really old; she told Doug, her husband, that no one at a construction site catcalls her anymore. So he goes over there with a six-pack of beer and asks them to whistle at his wife. The guys refused the beer, saying “we’re not supposed to drink on the job.” And one guy says, “So you’re saying you want us to sexually harass your wife?”

Doug says “Bingo.” :) And Carrie comes home very happy.

We women are really weird about our appearance; always afraid that men won’t find us appealing, whereas one friend of mine said that if a woman is willing to take off her clothes in front of him, he’s quite happy to overlook any tiny flaws she might focus on; he doesn’t even notice them. LOL

[proud American in Canada]

Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t read the map very well. I need to put my glasses on.

Of course the Greeks were a foundation of Western Civilization. Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, the list goes on.

I apologize for my stupid error.

[texas booster]

There are also multiple ‘click’ languages spoken. The best known is probably the !Kung spoken by the Khoi-san, made famous in the movie “The Gods Must be Crazy”.

One of my instructors spoke enough !Kung so that he could get around when he lived in South Africa.

[proud American in Canada]

Well, that’s what I was thinking; a way to communicate over long distances.

Now I have that “Ricola” commercial stuck in my head. I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember that one, thought it’s not super old. But it’s these guys, I think in lederhosen (sp?) who use those huge horns to blow signals as well as yodeling.