whistle past the graveyard

American  

[wis-uhl past thuh greyv-yahrd, hwis-] / ˈwɪs əl ˌpæst ðə ˈgreɪvˌyɑrd, ˈʰwɪs- /

idiom

1. to pretend to be calm, cheerful, and confident in an effort to reassure oneself or others; deny or ignore a threat or problem.

   I'm holding out hope that we can win this lawsuit, but I might be just whistling past the graveyard.

   The CEO’s press release reads like a hasty attempt to soothe nervous shareholders, combined with a hint of whistling past the graveyard.

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Example Sentences

Of course, but the notion of the natural world crumbling while humans whistle past the graveyard is nothing new, given the recent deluge of very good dystopian fiction that has been published in recent years.

From Los Angeles Times

Carnival—Latin for “farewell to flesh”—has always been an occasion to whistle past the graveyard.

From Slate

That has dragged the press into a situation where either we whistle past the graveyard or we call these things out as we see them.

From The New Yorker

“This shutdown is squeezing the finances of so many Americans, including thousands of federal workers who live in Virginia. As leaders, we can’t just whistle past the graveyard of this crisis.”

From Washington Post

Democratic insiders like Wasserman Schultz, however, continued to whistle past the graveyard, believing that the well-funded and well-connected Clinton machine — and general fear of a Trump regime — were enough to carry them to victory in November, despite the grass-roots disgust with a party that reeks of rot from the top.

From Salon