whistle in the wind

whistle in the wind

English

Verb

whistle in the wind

1. (especially Britain, 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," 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?," 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.

See also

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