We’d like to share this interesting podcast by On The Media discussing the origin of whistleblowers. The term dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. Ben Zimmer, executive editor of Vocabulary.com and language columnist for the Wall Street Journal says “original whistleblowers, naturally enough, were people who actually blew whistles! So that would be like…a referee, in football or boxing, who might blow the whistle in order to stop the proceedings. And then it just got extended in American slang–“blowing the whistle” just meant put a stop to things.”
For the full podcast, click here.