| 释义 |
ˈwhistle-stop, n. orig. U.S.
Also whistle stop.
[whistle n.]
1. A small station or town at which trains do not stop unless requested by a signal given on a whistle.
1934M. H. Weseen Dict. Amer. Slang 418 Whistle Stop, a small town. 1944Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 2 Sept. 2/4 The frank..and..challenging story of the men of the U.S. Foreign Service who represent America in the whistle⁓stops of the world. 1948N.Y. Times 7 Sept. 18/8 President Truman told a railroad station crowd here tonight that ‘before this campaign is over I expect to visit every whistle stop in the United States’. 1949Time 9 May 29/3 To protest making Electra a whistle stop for express trains, he had thousands of plastic whistles molded in the shape of locomotives. 1949‘H. Robbins’ Dream Merchants (1950) 290 He thought Rock had been acting strangely yesterday when they had been married at that whistle stop just inside the California border. 1957B. Hutchison Canada 217 The railway traveler sees only the dismal villages of the main line, the whistle stops around a wooden grain elevator..and a garage. 1965S. G. Lawrence 40 Yrs. on Yukon Telegraph xvii. 102 The railway company only recognized the town as a whistle stop.
2. One of a series of rapid, superficial visits.
1952Manch. Guardian Weekly 7 Aug. 3 Truman opens his trap at the first whistle-stop. Ibid. 9 Oct. 3 As for Mr Truman's contribution by whistle-stop, his speeches have been..violently abusive. 1959Observer 2 Aug. 9/4 We have gone on the marathon round of the dress shows (making whistle stops at breakfast and lunchtime at the smaller houses). 1976Courier-Jrnl. (Louisville, Kentucky) 17 Sept. a2/1 President Ford is making a three-day tour..that will include a series of ‘whistlestops’ aboard a Mississippi riverboat.
3. Used attrib. to designate a journey with a lot of brief halts; spec. one by a campaigning politician that takes in many undistinguished places in this way. Also fig.
1949Time 6 June 22/1 Louis Johnson..raised enough money..to pay for Harry Truman's whistle-stop campaign. 1952Manch. Guardian Weekly 18 Sept. 3/1 On the whistle-stop tour down California's Central Valley. 1959Manch. Guardian 23 July 1/3 The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh..continued their ‘whistle stop’ journey to Moose Jaw. 1972G. Durrell Catch me a Colobus v. 94 Our whistle-stop tours of the villages round about had paid dividends and when we went to visit them again we rarely came away empty handed. 1973M. Truman Harry S. Truman i. 1 We had left Independence, Missouri, earlier in the day, and made a whistle-stop visit to Junction City, Kansas, at 11:05 p.m. 1976Times Lit. Suppl. 23 July 904/4 She goes on to a whistle-stop history of attitudes to female inversion from Ancient Greece to the present day. 1978Broadcast 17 July 15/1 BBC Radio 1's Roadshow set off again this week with a seven-week whistle stop tour of Britain's holiday resorts. 1981N. & Q. Dec. 556/1 The result is an unremitting whistle-stop tour through barren regions.
Hence ˈwhistle-stop v., (a) trans., to travel through (a region) on a whistle-stop tour (rare); (b) intr., to make a whistle-stop tour; also ˈwhistle-stopping vbl. n.
1952News (Birmingham, Ala.) 26 July 1/3 In a sort of swan song to the Democratic Party as its leader, he offered to whistle-stop the country for his successor. Ibid. 23 Sept. 14/5 Ike Eisenhower had settled down to whistle-stopping. 1952Time 13 Oct. 23/3 In Michigan last week, nearly 100,000 people turned out to see Eisenhower as he whistlestopped across the state. 1957Ann. Reg. 1956 183 Most of the ‘whistle-stopping’ was left to the assiduous Mr. Nixon. 1959Observer 12 July 4/7 The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have been whistle-stopping their way across British Columbia. 1964J. Reston in M. McLuhan Understanding Media xxxii. 339 Everybody's now whistle-stopping through somebody else's country, usually ours. 1972Observer 23 Apr. 6/4 Italian politicians are whistle-stopping around the country this weekend in..the..election campaign. 1978Guardian 14 Dec. 15/4 Howard Jarvis..the Messiah of taxpayers..has whistle-stopped across the United States with..226 events every 10 days. |