Whistling for Communication

Gloria Borger: I can imagine where if whistling could maybe take the place of some of the otherwise necessary waving or just stipulating that would be required to sort of get somebody's attention and say, Hey, here I am. Let's converse. She says boys will hold a whistle conversation if they're trying to talk while older people are also nearby carrying on a spoken conversation or even singing together. The most common occasion is talking at a distance; he writes men working in the field seem to be able to communicate easily with people a full quarter of a mile away using the whistle speech.