Having spent most of my most recent journey trying (with varying levels of success) to stop myself from whistling "English Country Garden", I have come to the conclusion that not everyone is quite so intolerant of whistling as this thread might suggest. Or maybe Northerners are friendly and Southerners are deaf. (That's probably more likely.)
I guess I have the same problem with certain family members who dislike my whistling: unless you are afflicted by my dreadful misfortune, it's difficult to understand the how and why. I wouldn't compare it to speaking in tongues, but it's a similar balance - it makes perfect sense if you do it, it seems weird and illogical if you don't.
I get told it's quite a piercing noise, and I also get told it's quite tuneless (that is not to cast any aspersions on the accuracy of the observations, just to show that it does not sound like that in my head). I appreciate that my whistling can be tuneless when I try and switch between tunes, as that's when the sound bothers me and I realise I'm doing it. It may well be tuneless even when I'm whistling a coherent tune - it sounds decent to me and I have a semi-decent sense of pitch, but it may be different when I'm not deliberately doing it.
Given the (rather childish) "I assumed everyone would agree with me" quote, I'm probably fighting a losing battle. I realise that resurrecting a two-month-old thread to that end is not the wisest thing to do, but I have been thinking about this subject for a while in the meantime and wished to bow out with a bang
I genuinely cannot help it. A tune comes into my head, and, before I know it, I'm whistling it, and probably walking along to its rhythm for good measure. Any assumption (as there seems to be a lot of on this thread) that whistling comes from a root of malice and an earnest wish to ruin everyone's day (this may or may not be an exaggeration, but you get the point) is wrong.
I get that it's annoying for some people - but so are phone ringtones, pretty much every subject for conversation will annoy at least someone, unless it's fluffy kittens, constant coughing, sneezing, people eating crisps, announcement chimes, children, traction motor noises, laughing, keyboards clicking, you name it. How many of these should be altered in some way? Imagine issuing guidance not to eat crisps on trains because of the noise, or not to bring children, or to put your phone on silent, or not to talk about making yourself look as beautiful as possible and all the clubs you've been to lately, just because it will annoy the weird idiot with too much luggage next to you who wants to hear someone talk about musical theatre...
If it annoys you enough, fine, ask them to stop as you would any other matter. But don't be offended if, like the coughing and sneezing, it starts back up again, because for some insufferable people (like me) it is really, really hard to stop. And, try as I might, often I do get gently told, "You're whistling again, you know that?"
Public transport by its very nature is not going to be perfect for everybody - there will always be some element of the ambience which annoys someone. My bugbear is people overusing the word "like". Picking on whistlers for ruining the ambience fails to take the nature of it into account. If you want to have a perfect journey for you, with no noises to annoy you, your own music, and nobody else's conversation, go in the car.
I'm going to end up banned from forum meets now in case I drive everyone mad with whistling, aren't I...
