whistle in the wind

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

whistle in the wind (third-person singular simple present whistles in the wind, present participle whistling in the wind, simple past and past participle whistled in the wind)

1. (especially UK, idiomatic) To attempt something that is futile; to say something that is not heeded.
   • 2009 February 22, Simon Caulkin, “However good the pay, it doesn't buy results”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 29 July 2018:

     [T]hey are expending more and more effort on trying to get right something that cannot, and should not, be done in the first place. […] Endless exhortations to "do it better" are, to put it politely, whistling in the wind.

   • 2014 January 21, “Don't whistle in the wind?”, in DLH Marketing, UK, retrieved 29 July 2018:

     It doesn’t matter how strong your USP is or how powerful your value proposition, if the message isn’t reaching the right people you're whistling in the wind.

   • 2018 July 9, Farouk Cassim, "Let’s do much more than whistling in the wind", voices360.com (South Africa) (retrieved 29 July 2018):

     [E]veryone is doing no more than whistling powerlessly in the wind.

Synonyms

• piss in the wind
• piss up a rope

Translations

to attempt something that is futile

• German: ein Windei ausbrüten, gegen Windmühlen kämpfen (de)

to say something that is not heeded

• German: mit der Wand reden

See also

• whistle Dixie
• whistle down the wind
• whistle in the dark
• whistle past the graveyard