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The colloquial phrase to whistle in the dark means: to assume a pretence of courage, to disguise one’s fear with a jaunty manner.
This phrase occurs, for example, in EU chief blasts ‘infantile’ Johnson over Hulk joke, by Andrew Learmonth, published in The National (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland) of Monday 16th September 2019 [page 6, column 2]—the British Conservative politician Boris Johnson was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2022:
The EU’s chief Brexit co-ordinator has described Boris Johnson as “infantile” after he compared the UK to the Incredible Hulk and the EU to “manacles”.
[…]
European Parliament Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt wasn’t impressed: “Even to Trumpian standards the Hulk comparison is infantile. Is the EU supposed to be scared by this? The British public impressed? Is this Boris Johnson whistling in the dark?”
With one exception (cf., below, quotation 5), the earliest occurrences of the phrase to whistle in the dark that I have found explicitly liken the person or persons assuming a pretence of courage to a child or to children putting on a brave front by whistling in the dark.
These early occurrences are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From A Narrative of the Extraordinary Adventures, and Sufferings by Shipwreck & Imprisonment, of Donald Campbell, Esq. of Barbreck. With the singular Humors of his Tartar Guide, Hassan Artaz. Comprising the Occurrences of Four Years, and Five Days, in an Overland Journey to India. In a Series of Letters to his Son (New-York: Printed by L. Nichols & Co., 1801), by the Scottish travel writer Donald Campbell (1751-1804) [Part 3, Letter 59, page 317]:
How can I help contrasting his inflexible courage, united to angelic mildness, with the insolence of lilly-livered Hectors, who, conscious of the most abject cowardice, […] bluster and vapor to hide the trembling limb and poltroon aspect, as children whistle in the dark to brave the ghosts they dread!
2-: From a letter to William Pitt, dated 6th September 1803, by ‘Fitz. Albion’, published in The True Briton (London, England) of Wednesday 7th September 1803 [page 1, column 4, & page 2, column 1]:
They pulled on their seven-leagued-boots—frightened at first, like children in the dark, they bowed their heads lest they should come in contact with something above them, and they grop’d along the ground, lest they should tread upon a worm even, who might turn upon them; their steps were all caution, and every tone the tone of deprecation; When quick Presto begone—lo they strut with a bold and erect gait, through the most intricate and dirty passages—gallantly whistle through the dark, and care not what opposes them, or where they stumble.
3-: From the Poughkeepsie Journal and Constitutional Republican (Poughkeepsie, New York, USA) of Wednesday 31st January 1810 [page 2, column 5]—reprinted from the Utica Patriot (Utica, New York, USA) of Tuesday 16th January 1810:
A Club of Wits […] appeared to be mightily tickled with the nomination of Gen. Platt for the next governor. […] They are a set of worthies, who have been some time known in this country as “The French Directory.” […]
Children whistle in the dark to drive away their fears, and “The French Directory” affect to laugh at General Platt’s nomination in order to conceal their chagrin and mortification and prevent their party from catching the infection.
4-: From To the Catholics of Ireland, published in The Freeman’s Journal, and Daily Commercial Advertiser (Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) of Tuesday 26th February 1811 [page 3, column 3]—reprinted fro The Harp:
Mr. Perceval covers his terror over with a sepulchral laugh, when the fearful subject grates on his ears; but every man sees through the affected ‘ghastly smile’ of contempt, and the artifice appears as pdeicabel [i.e., predictable?] as it is flimsy. No, Mr. Perceval, thy glash [?] hideth not the apprehension of thy heart. The boy whistles in the dark to frighten away fear; but this dreadful Catholic apparition shall haunt thee until, at length, it drives thee from thy station to the low level of thy nature—to good Old Bailey practice of the hypocritical declamation of a conventicle.
5-: From The Old Bachelor (Richmond (Virginia): Printed at the Enquirer Press, 1814) [chapter 32, page 214]—however, here, the person attempting to hide his embarrassment is not likened to a child, but to cowards:
A man finds it necessary to rise before he is prepared. A powerful argument has been just delivered by the opposite party, which has overwhelmed his faculties; he is not ready to answer, but he is pushed on to do it, either by the indiscreet zeal of his adherents, by a supposed sense of duty, or by the shame and pride of party spirit: how will he do it? To do it, correctly, he ought to follow the arguments of his adversary, and answer and refute them one by one; but this he is conscious he cannot do at present:—how then will he proceed?—he will attempt to hide the embarrassment of his mind under a furious and senseless clamour, “as cowards whistle in the dark.” This trick is now so generally understood, that it answers no other end than to expose the speaker, by betraying that very impotence which it was assumed to hide.
6-: From The Chronicle or Harrisburgh [sic] Visitor (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA) of Monday 27th January 1817 [page 2, column 2]:
The blowing and bragging of the prints in the pay of the Treasurer, shew the shifts they are put to, to keep one another in heart: this answers the same purpose that whistling in the dark does a child, and it is prompted by the same instinct, to chase away their fears.
7-: From the Harrisburg Chronicle (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA) of Monday 19th June 1820 [page 3, column 2]:
The administration prints are endeavoring to keep up the spirits of their followers, by saying this county and that will give increased majorities for Wm. Findlay. […] The presses he has may boast; but the same impulse produces it that does the child when he whistles in the dark—it is, to chase away fear.
8-: From a letter to the Editors, dated Lebanon, Thursday 27th July 1820, by ‘a mechanic’, published in the Harrisburg Chronicle (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA) of Saturday 29th July 1820 [page 2, column 4]:
We have got one of the most remarkable geniuses among us that has ever appeared in any country. […] Hanke is the name of the extraordinary man I allude to, and he prints a paper called the Lebanon Courier. […]
This Hanke […] found out in six months after he came among us, how the Lebanon county people would vote at the election in October next, and before the people themselves began to talk about it, told exactly how great a majority Mr. Findlay would have. Lately he has began [sic] to tell how the people of other counties will vote, and what great majorities Mr. Findlay will have, which is staggering some who […] say he does not believe what he prints about Findlay’s majorities, but prints it to keep the prothonotary from getting frightened, as children whistle in the dark to chase away fear. These call him the WHISTLER, or whistling Hanke. Any how he may whistle away, without making any votes for Findlay in our county. We all know Joseph Hiester to be a good republican, a friend to economy, and an old revolutioner, and some of our county people were out in the war with him fighting the British, before Hanke was born, so that any thing said against the old general will not make a vote against him. In this county we will give Joseph Hiester a greater majority than we did in 1817, and from all we can hear from other counties he will be Governor by a large majority, the whistling of Hanke to the contrary no withstanding.
9-: From Brunswick Constitutional Clubs, published in The Constitution; Or, Cork Advertiser (Cork, County Cork, Ireland) of Saturday 25th October 1828 [page 2, column 3]:
Honest Jack Lawless, has taken offence at the illiberal proceedings of the Irish Government, which are not to his taste; and as boys whistle in the dark to shew their courage, Honest Jack makes speeches full of the spunk of heroism—and no man can give fairer promises of fortitude rhetorically.
The following is the earliest occurrence that I have found of the phrase to whistle in the dark used with no reference to a child or to children putting on a brave front by whistling in the dark—it is from the Republican and Journal (Springfield, Massachusetts, USA) of Saturday 31st October 1835 [page 2, column 4]:
THE LATE ELECTIONS.
Whistling in the dark.—The Van Burenites have lately been very much given to whistling in the dark, to keep up their courage, which has been dreadfully tested by the result of the Pennsylvania election. Their whistling consists of humming away upon a couple of very unimportant elections in Ohio and New Jersey.
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