What people say
Whistling in the house whistles your money away.Speech · 110 searches a month
Whistling indoors
Whistling in the house whistles your money away.
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
19th century in Russian and Baltic sources
That makes it
about 176 years old
Rank by age
33 oldest of 40 dated here
Category
Speech
Searched
110 a month
Whistling was said to summon wind, which matters at sea and in farming communities. Indoors it was held to whistle away money specifically.
Why it stuck. A prohibition on noise inside a small dwelling has an obvious practical value, and framing it as luck enforces it on children more effectively than an appeal to quiet.
What is going on
Strictly observed in Russia and the Baltic states to this day, including by people who describe themselves as entirely non-superstitious.Where it applies. Russia, the Baltics, Korea and among sailors of every nation.
Other speech superstitions
Recorded around the same time
Whistling indoors is the 33th oldest of the 40 dated superstitions here. Of those, 6 are younger than a century and 5 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →