I don’t know why, but I can’t stand it when people use the word “penny whistle” instead of tin whistle. It just gets on my nerves some reason. I needed to express my feelings with other tin whistle people, cause the folks where I live just think i’m weird.
Lighten up and go practice your penny whistle! JP
I’m with you Chanse. I also Hate it when people call it a pennywhistle. I don’t know why either but it makes me cringe. I think it makes it sound less appealing, and different when you call it a pennywhistle. Also I think when the tin whistle is called the pennywhistle it loses its irish sound and starts to sound british. (No facts to support this but it is my opinion). Honestly, I can’t explain it either. But nonetheless I’m with you.
Jack Murphy
to each his own, I guess.
Well, most of them aren’t made of tin any more. Then again, very few cost only pennies. Quite a while back, we had a discussion in which we debated the merits of various new names for our six hole, end blown fipple flutes. I think the one we settled on was the “Dale-O-Phone”. Lately, though, I’ve been sticking with the more vague and generic “whistle”.
On 2002-06-24 01:01, chanse wrote:
I don’t know why, but I can’t stand it when people use the word “penny whistle” instead of tin whistle. It just gets on my nerves some reason. I needed to express my feelings with other tin whistle people, cause the folks where I live just think i’m weird.
I also prefer “tin whistle” over “pennywhistle” but, FWIW, I think both sound kind of childish. However, its not that big of a deal. In matters such as this I abide by a simple phrase taught to me by my boy scout leader many years ago - “Don’t carry rocks in your backpack”
What I really hate is going into a new music store, asking if they carry any tinwhistles or pennywhistles, and the sales people point to the 29 cent box of monkey-assembled, plastic slide whistles and then smile as if they have good sense!!
If you don’t carry rocks in your backpack, what do you throw at the grizzly bears? Pennywhistles? 
Some manufacturers actually still use the term pennywhistle on their packaging, shame on them, should know better!
On 2002-06-24 01:27, MurphyStout wrote:
Also I think when the tin whistle is called the pennywhistle it loses its irish sound and starts to sound british.
What makes you think the whistle is Irish?
Calling them pennywhistles bothered me a little until I bought a Dixon. I can’t call it a TINwhistle any more, but PLASTICwhistle doesn’t sound right either. What’s left?
I kinda like WOODENwhistle, but then again I’m prejudiced…
It seems to me that there is a historical precedent for both names, penny whistle or tin whistle. Non-whistle people will use whichever term is more familiar to them – doesn’t change what it is. There also is precedent for confused naming of musical instruments, eg, the French horn (why is it French?) or the English horn which isn’t a horn but a double reed. This could be fun thread, things with misleading names.
Mike
I like calling them “Irish Whistles” since that is the music it is used with the most.
Joe
I took out my Feadóg on vacation last week and said to my mother-in-law “See my whistle?” She said “That’s not a whistle. That’s a flutophone.” She said they used to play things just like them when she was in high-school in the 40s and that she’d actually sent one home for my kids…(she’d sent something that looked like a toy recorder). As politely as I could, I said “Isn’t that a recorder?” “No,” she said, “It’s a fluteophone and that’s what you have there.”
Needless to say, I was stunned and felt the most irresistable urge to beat her about the head and shoulders with my whistle.
Calling my whistle a fluteophone REALLY bothered me! Is there even such a thing?
Kim
“Whistling women and crowing hens never come to no good end”
[ This Message was edited by: Kim in Tulsa on 2002-06-24 09:18 ]
The only time the term “penny whistle” bothers me is when my wife uses it as in “my husband is the only person who can pay $80 for a penny whistle!”
I think Penny Whistle sounds far too long of a name, especially when I am introduced as starting the next tune on my Penny Whistle.
The last show we did a few people in the front put on such a dumb, blank stare, that
my boss pointed to me and said “Thats the gal
with the gadget in her mouth!”
But, that is even WORSE!
lolly
All my non-musician friends call it a flute–I don’t really care what it’s called. Sometimes I call it my tweet tweet, my bodrhan my bang bang, and my bones my clack clacks. Oh, and my dulcimer my twang twang. He he.
Yes, flute is what most people call it when they ask me to play. They are, of course, partially correct (and perhaps totally correct), as the classification of a tin whistle is “fipple flute.” But I hate it when they say “flute”. I used to argue, “Well, it’s not really a flute,” but that was wrongheaded also, as it is a type of flute. Pennywhistle sounds like a kid’s instrument, but I find the word popping out of my mouth on occasion. When I do a workshop, I always publicize it as “tin whistle,” so people DON’T think it’s a slide whistle class, but in normal conversation, I just say “whistle.” The word “feadog” generally makes people laugh (“fey dog”), and “feadan” isn’t much better.
So it’s a tinwhistle as far I concerned, but I’ll generally call it just plain whistle.
my mom always calls it a flute. She’s always like “why don’t you go toot your flute” when she wants to get rid of me.
It makes me mad, I don’t know why. Probably cos she’s always trying to get me out of the room so she can watch her boring tv shows.
I like the term “pennywhistle” for some reason. Makes me think of fairy tales or something. Go figure.
I tend to have just the opposite response. For some reason, “tin” to my ear implies “cheap” (not “cheap” as in inexpensive, but “cheap” as in “trashy,” “poorly made,” etc.), and the sound that “tin” or “tinny” implies isn’t a pleasant one. Usually I just say “whistle,” but if I have to clarify, I say “pennywhistle” or “Irish whistle.”
One of the problems I’ve run into with using just plain “whistle” is that people who aren’t into traditional music don’t think “musical instrument” when they hear “whistle”…they think of that thing coaches and police officers blow on (or perhaps of that thing you do with pursed lips when you’re working on the car or trying to attract someone’s attention). Once, when I told a friend on the phone that I had to practice my whistle, she hesitated for a moment and then said “I didn’t know you had to practice with one of those” (she was thinking of a police/coaches whistle, of course).
Perhaps we ought to follow Generation’s lead and refer to them as flageolets, which is technically the group of instruments to which they belong. Or there’s always “fipple flute,” but since that does include the recorders (as well as tonettes, “flutophones,” etc.) it’s maybe not as descriptive. I like the Irish “feadog,” but as someone else pointed out, it’s often mispronounced with somewhat humorous results.
Redwolf
Cantate Domino Canticum Novum
[ This Message was edited by: Redwolf on 2002-06-24 12:15 ]
On 2002-06-24 08:21, burnsbyrne wrote:
There also is precedent for confused naming of musical instruments, eg, the French horn (why is it French?) or the English horn which isn’t a horn but a double reed. This could be fun thread, things with misleading names.Mike
HA!
I’m an oboe/English Horn player, and this always seemed weird to me.
The French Horn is always called the “French Horn” and not cor francais (unless you’re French! ), but the English Horn is normally referred to in its French name - cor anglais!
Also the “English” Horn originated in France and the “French” Horn in Germany (I think).
I beleive this is because the cor anglais (or tenor oboe - much more sensible name I think! 
) was named “English” as a mis-translation from “Angled” (the tenor oboe is bent).
Ah. Glad to get rid of that frustration!