The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #97837 Message #1931089
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
09-Jan-07 - 01:01 AM
Thread Name: Just pucker up and blow
Subject: RE: Just pucker up.....and blow
I suppose most time I hear someone whistling in the street it tends to be me. It's not a conscious act to start whistling, I just notice that I am. The decision is whether to continue. The times I whistle are when I'm walking on my own, or working outside on my own, and I suspect that'd be true for most people.
It may be that modern life reduces the situation where that would apply, a lot of us tend to be in crowds of one sort or another, and you wouldn't whistle in a crowd normally.
It occurs to me to wonder about whistling in other cultures - I mean where the music is different, quarter tones and different scales and so forth.
The other thing that some people do a lot more than others is hum. I think that can be even more indicative of mood than whistling. You can whistle in all kinds of moods, and the whistling reflects it - fierce, happy, frightened. But a hum is always contented, it seems to me.