";s:4:"text";s:4419:" Alternatively the origin may be the clean appearance of a just carved wooden whistle. Anyway, as others have stated, it basically means that girls aren’t supposed to whistle. On the serious side, the phrase is often used when the quitting brings physical symptoms of withdrawal, as with heroin or other highly addictive drugs. However, it can also be used more lightheartedly, as in this recent Business Insider headline: "I was addicted to dating apps, so I quit cold turkey." 13 Southern Sayings the Rest of America Won't Understand. A perched male rufous hummingbird. Whistling definition, the act of a person or thing that whistles. Show Threads Show Posts. (From "Why You Say It" by Webb Garrison, Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1992.) My grandmother’s version of it was “A whistling woman and a crowing hen always come to some bad end.” She was born in the state of Mississippi in 1909 and presumably would have heard it in the 1910s. There seems no reason to doubt, therefore, that the Rufus of Mark and the Rufus of Paul are the same person.
Of course, the art took off as an entertainment in the wake of Frank Churchill and Larry Morey writing Whistle While You Work for the classic Disney film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1937. We in the south happen to like our sayings. Forum: English Idioms and Sayings. May 19, 2014 . The expression is proverbial, at least since the 18th century, when Robert Burns used a variation on it. Rufus was well known among those for whom Mark primarily wrote his Gospel, and according to tradition this was the Christian community at Rome. . English Phrasal Verbs. Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Whistling Rufus (W M Lind, Kerry Mills) From: GUEST,did you find anything Date: 26 Jun 09 - 09:49 AM I run an Alzheimer's Day Center and one of our clients keeps singing "I knew a man named Rufus who had a head like a sledgehammer and his mouth/face had a terrible scar" Just trying to find the source to surprise him. Description. David, Tulse Hill. Ever wondered why it 'rains cats and dogs'? Mystery Hour Question. Where Does "Naked As A Jaybird" Come From? But where the heck did it come from? If you say, “He stuck his spoon in the wall,” you mean that he died. "One possibility is that the old simile describes the whistling sound of a sword as it swishes through the air to decapitate someone, and an early 19th century quotation does suggest this connection: 'A first rate shot.