If something’s clean as a whistle, that doesn’t mean it’s shiny and spotless like a silver whistle in a referee’s mouth. The idiom refers to a whistling sound: That piercing noise is super-bright and finely edged on the ear. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Clean as the Sound of a Whistle”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Lana from Flower Mound, Texas.
I had a question about a phrase that I have known. I’ve always known this phrase. I don’t remember anybody using it around me. So it’s just like deep in my vernacular. It’s the phrase clean as a whistle.
The first time I used this phrase around my husband, he laughed at me because he thought I had mixed up the phrase. Because he said, well, a whistle is really dirty. So if something’s clean as a whistle, is it full of spit? Is it dirty? What’s going on? Oh, dirty like an actual physical whistle like a referee would have? We got your back. Awesome. And I said, it’s a real phrase people use all the time. And he laughed at me and didn’t believe me.
Oh, really? He grew up in Texas, so he says phrases all the time that I’ve never heard of. I bet. I bet. And where are you from? Well, it’s one of the privileges of living in Texas. You can speak like you want to. I guess so. Colorful language. I’m from California originally.
Okay. All right. So it must be interesting around your house. Here’s the thing. Clean as a whistle has nothing to do with the device or the thing. It’s the actual sound itself. The sharp, piercing sound of a whistle is one of the cleanest things you can know. Right? It’s the sound. The sound is sharp and piercing. It’s very, it’s got a clean, audible edge to it. Nothing could be cleaner.
Yeah, there’s no germs on the sound of a whistle. Yeah, but the spit-covered little metal thing with the ball rolling around it, vibrating inside, yeah, that’s really disgusting. Probably got mold growing on the cork. Right. So you’re right. It’s clean as a whistle, and it refers to the sound, not the device, okay?
Okay, that makes sense. That’s great. I can win this one. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. You are completely in the right. Good to go. Good. I’ll use it all the time now. Oh. Aren’t those plates clean as a whistle? I guess you better wash them again. That’s great. Thanks, Lana. Bye-bye. Thanks for calling. Bye-bye.
You know, that reminds me, and this is completely a tangent, but I have to tell you this. Sure. One of the things about having a kid is going to the toy store or any kind of gift shop in a museum. And they always have these things at child height. Oh, yeah. Like whistles and harmonicas and flutes and recorders. And so the first couple years, you’re trying to get your kid not to put that toy in his mouth because you know that a thousand other children have done that. And then at some point, you’re just like, I guess you’re tired of fighting the battle. Those are some dirty whistles. I mean, while your fingers are in your ears, right?
Yeah, so we could coin a new idiom, as dirty as a toy store whistle. Because those are filthy. And the kid doesn’t, like it could be still wet and gummy from the last kid, you know? Well, yeah, yeah, and if it’s plastic, it’s got teeth marks in it, right? Yeah, exactly. It’s got a little bit of like the arrow biscuit on it still, like gummed up in the, you know. Why doesn’t this a whistle work? Well, you have to take the cookies out of the hole.
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“As dirty as a toy store whistle.” I had to laugh with you about being just the right height. When my son was about 4, we walked into a men’s room at a restaurant. The restroom was narrow and as we walked, single file, past the urinal, he spotted the pink deoderant “puck” and snatched it out, asking, “What’s this, Daddy?”
As noted by this a pipe culvert is some-times, -places called a whistle. Its intention is to pass water without intending to make a sound. That definition is not contained in the OxED.
With a couple in the low-water bridge below my dad’s house, this summer’s deluges has a whole different connotation on the concept of a clean whistle. I have had to clean their openings several times to aid the water flowing under the road rather than over the low-water bridge. Several times it was unsafe to cross and one should “Turn around; Don’t drown.”
So, “clean as a whistle” means something entirely different in this context.