Each week here at the Australian Writers’ Centre, we dissect and discuss, contort and retort, ask and gasp at the English language and all its rules, regulations and ridiculousness. It’s a celebration of language, masquerading as a passive-aggressive whinge about words and weirdness. This week, Mumbo Jumbo-sized…
Q: Hi AWC, can we please discuss the elephant in the room?
A: Oh YES please. And hey, it’s nothing personal – we’re sure some people can pull off that look, but on you it’s quite terrible.
Q: Wait, why are you talking about my new haircut? I wanted to talk about the origin of the phrase “elephant in the room”.
A: Ooooooh.
Q: …
A: Awkward.
Q: Ahem. Well anyway, where does the phrase come from?
A: Let’s start with its modern day meaning. Macquarie Dictionary describes this idiom as “the topic that everyone knows about but no-one wants to discuss openly”. And its exact origins are a little grey.
Q: Like an elephant!
A: Very good. One theory has it beginning with Russian author Ivan Krylov, who wrote a fable in 1814 called The Inquisitive Man. In this story, a man visits a museum and recounts many small things but somehow fails to notice the giant elephant on display.
Q: A “not seeing the forest for the trees” kind of situation?
A: Exactly. Incidentally, that particular saying dates all the way back to English writer John Heywood in 1546.
Q: What’s another theory for our elephant’s origins?
A: It links the phrase to an 1882 Mark Twain short story called The Stolen White Elephant. Curiously, the elephant in this story is named “Jumbo” – which was the actual name of a London Zoo elephant at the time.
Q: Is this where “Jumbo” for elephants comes from?
A: It’s the first reference, yes. That said, “jumbo” had been slang for clumsy or unwieldy since the 1820s. And “Mumbo Jumbo” had been adapted from Africa a century earlier as the name for superstitious worship idols. It would eventually become synonymous with “big empty talk” by 1896.
Q: So the elephant was the first jumbo-sized thing?
A: That’s right! In fact, the zoo would later sell Jumbo to P.T. Barnham for use in his circus.
Q: The guy from The Greatest Showman!
A: That’s the one. Although with considerably less singing and dancing.
Q: So, to recap – the phrase’s influences were The Inquisitive Man by Krylov and The Stolen White Elephant by Twain.
A: Speaking of Twains, Jumbo the elephant was tragically killed by a choo choo twain in 1885.
Q: Ouch. Actually, while we’re here, WHY is it called a “white elephant”?
A: Today, it’s often used in politics – where a “white elephant” is an inconvenient thing that is difficult to get rid of. A “white elephant project” might be a stadium used for just one event and then left to decay.
Q: But why is it white?
A: That comes from the very real inspiration for Twain’s story. In 1851, the King of Thailand (back then known as ‘Siam’) gifted an albino elephant to someone he didn’t particularly like. On one hand, it was a great honour. And yet, elephants cost rather a lot to maintain.
Q: Imagine the vet bills!
A: Anyway, by 1915 we see a similar phrase pop up as an example of something that is obvious: “Is there an elephant in the classroom?” A bit like asking “is the Pope a Catholic?”
Q: Or does a bear defecate in the woods? And if so, does he see the forest or the trees?
A: Haha, exactly. The phrase would pop up over the next few decades, but typically as a way of stating that elephants are large and easily seen. It’s not until 1952 that we start getting close to today’s meaning – shifting from describing something literally “jumbo-sized” to a more figurative “large” thing such as a sensitive or awkward topic.
Q: So, has it only been in dictionaries fairly recently?
A: Yep. The Oxford Dictionary added it in 1959 but in the US, Merriam-Webster Dictionary didn’t include it until 1985.
Q: Surely the elephant was well and truly in the room by then!
A: Haha, yeah. By the way, in the meantime, “jumbo jet” became a term in 1964 and the “jumboTron” came along in 1985 – a large scale video screen invented and named by Sony for use at baseball games.
Q: Addressing the elephant in the stands…
A: Surely!
Q: Well, this has been fun. Any other jumbo-sized facts?
A: How about this one: In 2006, artist Banksy painted a real elephant to match a room’s wallpaper in an art installation that leant heavily on a literal interpretation of today’s idiom.
Q: This was enlightening. Now back to the other elephant in the room. Is my haircut really that bad?
A: Is the Pope a Catholic?
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