Photo of American whistleblower Edward Snowden, who in 2013 exposed the National Security Agency’s global surveillance program, which included surveillance of American citizens in contravention of U.S. law. Opinions of Snowden range from traitor to patriot.
18 August 2021
The slang sense of whistleblower, that is someone who informs or exposes criminal or scandalous activity appears in the early twentieth century, and the phrase to blow the whistle on comes a few years later. Of course, there are many earlier uses of these terms in a literal sense, that is one who makes noise by passing air through a whistle. The moral valence of these terms has also changed. In early use, being a whistleblower was considered a betrayal, akin to being a rat or stool pigeon. In today’s use, it’s generally considered a noble role, exposing wrongdoing for the greater good.
There probably isn’t a single, underlying metaphor behind the non-literal uses. A combination of a referee using a whistle to call a foul or announce the end a period, a policeman blowing a whistle to alert others of criminal activity, and a factory whistle signaling the end of a shift all play a role, to varying degrees in any particular instance.
One such early literal use of whistleblower appears in San Francisco’s Daily Evening Bulletin of 1 December 1860:
The Japanese are extremely fond of children. Underneath this figure was a stage; and here was a man dressed like a bear, and certainly bruin could not have been more faithfully and naturally represented. He threw himself in every conceivable attitude, extending his huge jaws as if he would swallow all about him, dancing and prancing to the delight of the people, young and old. A kettle-drum, a flier and a whistle-blower, formed the orchestra for bruin to dance by—truly music for a bear.
There are undoubtedly older instances of literal use than this one. The literal uses of whistleblower could be in the context of music, as this one is, or a factory whistle signaling the end of shift, a boat or train whistle, a fire or other emergency alarm, or a policeman’s whistle. The whistleblower could be a person or a mechanical device.
The slang sense of whistleblower first appears as a name for a referee in a sporting match and is most often used in the context of a basketball game. It is literal in the sense that referees do blow whistles, but it is a case of what rhetoricians call metonymy, that is where a related thing, in this case the blowing of a whistle, stands in for an object, that is the referee. We see an early example in the Trenton Times of 19 December 1901:
The Camden-Penn Wheelman American League game scheduled for last night at Camden was declared off at the last minute owing to the non-appearance of a league referee. Both teams were on the floor by 8:30 o’clock and a small crowd was on hand, but nary a whistle blower showed up.
And on the other side of the continent, we get this from the San Jose Mercury Herald of 17 November 1914:
Professor R.B. Leland and Manager Neil H. Petree are attempting to get L.S. Reading to referee the big game With [sic] Palo Alto next Saturday. Reading is acceptable to Palo Alto, and if the expert whistleblower is not occupied elsewhere next Saturday, he will officiate.
At around the same time, we see whistleblower in the sense of an informer, one who exposes illicit or immoral activity. There is this from the Philadelphia Inquirer of 19 September 1906:
I am charged with having been in a maudlin and drunken condition in the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia. Look me over. Do I look like a man who has dissipated? At the age of 67 I am vigorous and hale, and have one son weighing 225 pounds. Do you think I am much of a degenerate?
Because I have not made the millions that Rockefeller, Rogers and Archibald did—and I could have done so—and I have remained honest, this pea shooter and whistle-blower has gone through the State maligning my character.
Note that here being a whistleblower is not a good thing, and this quotation is quite early for a political use of the term. Until mid-century, most uses are in sports writing or gossip columns. For instance, an article about gambling in professional baseball in the 25 November 1943 issue of the Oregonian uses the term. Here the term Senators refers to the bygone Washington, DC baseball team, not the members of the legislative body:
Before departing, McCann asked Harris if he had discussed the matter with anyone else, and Bucky said that he had just talked to Clark Griffith, president of the Senators, in Washington. Harris didn’t want to be considered a whistleblower and had sought the advice of the sage Senator boss who had been almost a father to “Boy Wonder” since the first time he managed the Nats in 1924.
And the journalist/gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen published this on 9 May 1949:
Susan Stephenson Schrafft Guinle prefers “Gigi” Goodenough, the painter, to the rest of the local males. He’s the one who gave shelter last Summer to Tom Sullivan, the whistleblower in the Buckner-Woolley-Hart case.
And fellow journalist/gossip columnist Walter Winchell wrote this for his 8 October 1958 column:
The whistleblower on that $50,000 a month call-girl story was a witch, who tried to tap Bea Garfield, alleged moddom [sic], for $250.
Use of whistleblower in a political context starts appearing in earnest in the 1950s. Here is a letter to the Times-Union of Albany, New York which acknowledges the term has been used to disparage Senator Joseph McCarthy:
As to Senator McCarthy being a “whistleblower,” if he is, who is to blame? If the Communist organs, pinkies, leftists, etc., did not issue such blasphemous lies and smears against him, he would not have to be so torrid in retaliation.
It isn’t until the 1970s that we start seeing whistleblower being used in a positive light, perhaps as a result of the growing consumer safety and protection movement and the growing distrust of government arising out of the Vietnam War. There is this from the New York Times of 17 January 1971:
A “whistle blower,” Mr. Nader told 250 people, young and old, students, housewives and journalists jammed into the narrow church auditorium, is “anyone in any organization” who has “drawn a line in his own mind where responsibility to society transcends responsibility to the organization.”
The phrase to blow the whistle follows a similar trajectory as whistleblower. There are thousands of early appearances of the co-location of these words to refer to literally sounding a whistle. But in the 26 July 1908 issue of Washington, DC’s Sunday Star we get this use, which is not in reference to informing or exposing, but rather ceasing an activity. The underlying metaphor here is probably akin to a factory whistle signaling the end of a shift:
“Do you mean to say you haven’t noticed it? Don’t try to bluff! Surely you have. And we’re all dying to know if he’s proposed to her. Has he?”
“Ah, say, Sadie! Blow the whistle on that, can’t you?” says I. “You’re gettin’ so you can’t see two young things meet on the same side of the street without layin’ plans to pair ’em for life.”
And we see a similar use in a tale by humorist George Ade about a family’s declining fortunes and how they could no longer afford the lifestyle they had become accustomed to:
Shortly after Claude went limping past the 40th Mile Stone, he had to blow the whistle on Friend Wife, who was getting ready to send Daughter to Europe and put Son in Yale.
We see the phrase meaning to inform or expose in a sporting context in this 17 November 1927 piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about Native American athlete Jim Thorpe being stripped of his Olympic medals:
Somebody blew the whistle on Jim Thorpe, and the mighty Indian athlete and Olympic hero recovered from the shock in due time. They took away his trophies and honors, but they couldn’t rob Jim of his memories. Somehow the public took the view that the American Olympic committee should have known what it was doing when it allowed Thorpe to compete as an amateur.
And a year and a half later, we get this from the world of boxing in the 10 February 1929 San Francisco Chronicle:
Tex was a pretty fair journeyman hater, but every now and again you would find him tearing a page cut from his hate-book and starting a new account with someone who had been a sworn enemy [....] Johnston had the run of his office and, at the same time, was holding conversations with the Federal prosecutor, who was troubling Tex about the interstate transportation of the Dempsey-Carpentier films, contrary to law.
I am loath to believe that Mr. Johnston ever blew the whistle on a trusting friend, but Tex believed it, and he carried Johnston on the book for years.
And we see Walter Winchell again using the phrase in a political context in his 23 January 1932 column:
That tale about the “mysterious” authors of the “Washington Merry-Go-Round” fascinates me ... How the Dep’t of Justice and so many other sleuths could never blow the whistle on the right guy and how that book bothered so many statesmen and how so many reporters were fired because they were suspected of having something to do with that tome’s manufacture.
And there is this from the world of criminals in the 29 August 1935 Richmond Times-Dispatch:
Misunas, tall and broad-shouldered, outwardly appears the embodiment of strength. His face is full and ruddy. He walks with an elastic step. He was not trying to keep from “burning” in the electric chair, but thinking of saving his mother and father humiliation, he testified, in explaining how he “blew the whistle” on his former friends.
Sources:
Ade, George. “George Ade’s New Fables in Slang.” Richmond Times-Dispatch (Virginia), 11 June 1916, 50. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Amateur Goss’p.” San Jose Mercury Herald, 17 November 1914, 8. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Bowen, Mrs. Frank N. “In the Editor’s Mailbox: In Defense of McCarthy.” Times Union (Albany, New York), 1 June 1954, 18. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Emery Ignores Castle Charges” (dateline 18 September 1906). Philadelphia Inquirer, 19 September 1906, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Ford, Sewall. “Beating Ripley to It.” Sunday Magazine of the Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.), 26 July 1908, 6. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Harper, Robert. “Playing the Game.” Richmond Times-Dispatch (Virginia), 17 November 1927, 15. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
———. “Tragedy, Humor in Testimony of Misunas at Trial of Mais.” Richmond Times-Dispatch (Virginia), 29 August 1934, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Harris Tells About Betting.” Oregonian (Portland), 25 November 1943, sect. 3, page 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Kearn’s Error of Judgment Was Costly: Jimmy Johnston, Tex Get Together; Money’s Cement.” San Francisco Chronicle, 10 February 1929, 3H. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Kilgallen, Dorothy. “Voice of Broadway” (syndicated). Trenton Sunday Times-Advertiser (New Jersey), 8 May 1949, 10. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Letter from Japan” (29 October 1860). Daily Evening Bulletin (San Francisco), 1 December 1860, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“News of the Cage: Referee Did Not Appear.” Trenton Times (New Jersey), 19 December 1901, 9. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oka, Takashi. “Nader’s Consumer Message Draws Crowds in Japan.” New York Times, 17 January 1971, 3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. whistle, n.
Winchell, Walter. “On Broadway” (syndicated). Columbia Record (South Carolina), 23 January 1932, 4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
———. “On Broadway: Memos of a Midnighter” (syndicated). Times Union (Albany, New York), 8 October 1958, 22. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Photo credit: Laura Poitras/Praxis Films, 2013. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.