Talk:Elephant in the room/Archives/2013

Cut from intro

For example, it is common for politicians to discuss issues they can affect, while ignoring huge issues that demand attention, but don't have an obvious solution - such an issue would be the elephant in the corner.

I don't think issues which don't have an obvious solution are properly included in the elephant category. Many issues are ignored when they can't be fixed, but people still talk about them. Like diseases in the era before Pasteur and Lister. No one knew how to prevent or cure them, but they didn't become taboo.

The Taiwanese sovereignty issue is something which (ironically) could be solved. But diplomats choose not to talk about it, because of political or other pressures.

I think we need to bring out the aspect that people's refusal to address the problem is often the biggest obstacle to its solution. If we just admit that daddy is a drunk who beats mommy, we can deal with it. (Instead of hoping it will go away, etc.) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 19:25, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

This is a weak metaphor as it is. Peppering it with weak examples will not serve it any way. --VKokielov 04:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Requested move (merge)

This is the last stage of a merge requested by User:Blotwell. I just need someone to actually move the article. It should move, rather than stay here, because Elephant in the room is the more common idiom. (In fact, a move to Elephant in the living room instead might be appropriate, as an apparently earlier and more etymologically correct version.)

Please sign your posts with four tildes. re: your comment: just because it is earlier doesn't mean it is the most common/popular/notable. I mean living room isn't wrong, but OMHO "Elephant in the room" is more common therefore should be the title. Unless one of us has a source then this will become a never-ending duel of opinions. What's the NPOV solution? Peace, MPS 05:07, 2 May 2006 (UTC).

Pink Elephants

"(not that pink elephants exist, obviously)"

i would argue that elephant in the room is seperate to pink elephants in that an elephant in hte room is an obvious view impossible to ignore. pink elephants is an idiom for being completely drunk and hallucinating. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.91.9.153 (talk) 05:41, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I have searched now in Google Books. And i found in the first 100s nothing about addiction. It seems only to be a heightening: You can oversee a elephant in the room. And if it is pink, it is far more uncommon. --Franz (Fg68at) de:Talk 05:33, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Source of phrase?

See some citations (at least for the American use of the phrase) in the entry Americanism (semiotics). There is a definite thread through cites from the New York Times, a poem that was reprinted in Ann Landers that helped to link it to the addiction/recovery movement in the 1980s. See Discussion page on that entry. For what it's worth -- 21 June 2006 (a librarian wrote this.)

Addition?

From what I've heard lately, it seems that the number of elephants in the room have tripled in the last six months. Is this a candidate for addition?

oh god don't kill me. 209.150.61.247 05:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Redirection?

Is there any reason that 800lb gorilla redirects here? From my understanding, they mean two very different things. Please correct me if I'm wrong here. 84.58.28.238 21:06, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Another layer of Rumsfeldism?

An elephant in the room could be interpreted as a new layer in Donald Rumsfeld's knowledge layers. He had "Known Knowns", "Known Unknowns" and "Unknown Unknowns" (see quotes linked from his entry). This represents a "Denied Known" - something you know you know but deny knowing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.196 (talk) 15:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

This should be kept and not deleted. The current text is very good and was very helpful to me

Keep it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pos777 (talk • contribs) 21:20, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed; I looked it up to find the source of the expression and benefited from the answer. Please do not delete it. 70.231.226.118 (talk) 16:37, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

KEEEEEEP THIS PAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.59.64 (talk) 03:01, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I also agree that this is useful information to have in Wikipedia. I looked it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.95.133.97 (talk) 20:44, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Balbus

I don't think the Balbus (Lucius Cornelius Balbus (consul)) mentioned was known for his buildings as much as Lucius Cornelius Balbus the Younger, his nephew, was. Also, the citations at the bottom of the page suggest that the sentence Balbus built a wall does not come from a Latin-British exercise book. Does anyone care to explain where it does come from then? Now, of course I am not sure about the two Balbi (lol?), but when I look at their article, the younger one is noted for building a suburb in Cadiz and a impressive theater in Rome crypta balbi. 81.68.255.36 (talk) 11:12, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

The following is consolidated, copying from User talk:81.68.255.36. --Tenmei (talk) 22:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Balbus murum fecit?

As you suggested, this seemingly off-topic link in the article about an Elephant in the room was changed from Lucius Cornelius Balbus (consul) (or Balbus, the elder) to Lucius Cornelius Balbus the Younger.

Please edit this paragraph so that it makes better sense. I wrote it, and if it is not clear; the flaw is in my prose.

Restatement: The online OED explained that the first use of the phrase was in 1959. However, a search of Google books revealed that the phrase was published many years earlier in 1915 -- see Google books search for elephant in the room + balbus

Journal of education

1915

"... as far as a reader can judge, the human boy will be bored to extinction. Most of the questions are infantine and less amusing than the prehistoric Balbus and his wall: "Is there an elephant in the class-room? Does ink smell nice ? ..."

I didn't try to track down an earlier use of the phrase, but the snippet of text suggests that the concept of an elephant in the room was not novel in 1915. Does this help you figure out how to re-write what I posted? Maybe this was one of those times in which explaining context is unhelpful. I have edited the flawed paragraph. What do you think? --Tenmei (talk) 15:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

elephant in the room

The following is consolidated, copying from User talk:Tenmei. --Tenmei (talk) 22:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey Tenmei,

this edit is not always a useful one. I often have a hard time researching/checking books from sources and citations here and, like you, I search with google books. Now I suppose this particular book (Journal of education) is on google books making the deleting of the quote less harmful in this article, but we shouldn't delete "in-article quotes" for the sake of it being hard to find some books so easily. :) Anyway, with that edit you also deleted Balbus the Younger :P but it's okay. I'm not a native English speaker so I do not feel extremely strongly about the article, but I found it rather weird you deleted it :P

The thing I wanted to know was that

"Most of the questions are infantine and less amusing than the prehistoric Balbus and his wall: "Is there an elephant in the class-room?"." __________. (1915). Journal of education, Vol. 37, p. 288; a factoid that "Balbus built a wall" comes from a Latin exercise book in use in British Empire education around 1900 -- exercises from Latin to English, vice versa or both with sentences like "Balbus murum fecit."

says factoid. Did that mean that the phrase "Balbus murum fecit" did not come from the Latin-Enlgish exercisebook? why doesn't it say where it actually comes from since someone on wikipedia thinks of it as a wikt:factoid, I didn't understand that. So I asked on the talkpage, but I see your point when you said "off-topic". The rest looks fine to me now

Greetings :) 81.68.255.36 (talk) 16:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I regret causing this off-topic problem.

In my search for information about the idiomatic expression "elephant in the room," I encountered a number of things I didn't understand. If something was off-topic, I set it aside. I did not use all the information I discovered. This is normal, is it not?

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) explained that the expression seems to have been coined in 1959. I also remembered reading an inconsistant sentence in a 1915 British journal. Per WP:NPOV, I posted the OED as a cited fact; and I paired it with a linked citation which contradicted the 1950s date. I hoped this would create a foundation for further investigation and clarification.

For the purposes of our Wikipedia article, the 1915 rhetorical question stands on its own -- "Is there an elephant in the class-room?" I was puzzled by the context; and I was vexed that I couldn't understand it. Perhaps I should have left it for someone else to learn the hard way? Instead, I reasoned that someone checking my source citations would likely wonder about the off-topic context in which the elephant in the room was found. This is reasonable, is it not?

I googled "balbus"; and a short blog-thread suggested helpful theories here. In addition, I located the following excerpt from a 1906 book review in the New York Times.

• "Some years ago an educator had an idea; instead of requiring his pupils to write about Balbus and Caius, who always "muros aedificabant," he had them translate into Latin stories of Padius, who built the stairs in his new house very steep, because he said he found that for one time he went up them he came down half a dozen times. That idea made even Latin prose composition interesting to the compositors." -- "Amusement and Instruction," New York Times Review of Books.February 3, 1906.

In Google books, I searched for "Balbus murum fecit," and the first "hit" here identified the phrase as an ancient paradigm. This led me to conclude that I had encountered one of those phrases which were assumed to be common knowledge. In other words, I guessed that this Latin phrase was considered within the English lexicon of the Victorian era. If 21st century readers like me don't understand the context and signficance, that knowledge-gap is not necessarily significant.

I also found a book which mentioned Balbus in the context of an elementary textbook here. I leared that James Joyce incorporated references to Balbus in the pages of Finnegan's Wake.

At this point, I believed I had aggregated sufficient verification to support a brief inline comment which was flagged with the term "factoid."

I was wrong. This was one of those times when the attempt to be helpful produced results which were unhelpful. I'm sorry.

According to the Wikipedia article, a factoid is something which is repeated so often that it is believed to be valid or true. The factoid in this instance refers to Balbus and an associated activity — building walls.

As I read it, the noun "factoid" bears no realtionship to the explicit provenance of the phrase. Children in the 19th century learned to write by copying and translating the Latin phrases about the Romans. For example, my guess is that the textbook which was famous around the turn of the century was perhaps this one -- Heatley, Henry Richard and Herbert Napier Kingdon. (1882). Gradatim, an Easy Latin Translation Book, Oxford: Oxford University Press. OCLC 77762862

THE RELATIVE. 
§ 21. (a) The Relative is used to avoid repeating a word

(called its Antecedent) already used once. 
  Video murum, quern Balbus aedificavit. 
  / see the wall, which Balbus built. 
If there were no Relative we should have to say, 
  Video murum, et Balbus eum murum aedificavit. 
  I see the wall, and Balbus built that wall. 
Thus it has also the force of a Conjunction, and serves

to connect Sentences. -- Heatley, Henry Richard et al. 

(1882). [https://books.google.com/books?id=4Y8CAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA34 

Gradatim, an Easy Latin Translation Book, p. 34.], p. 34, at Google Books

It is a fact that Balbus and his activities are linked to childhood learning, but anything about what Balbus did or did not do would have been a mere factoid in the absence of other corroborating data.

I have not discovered whether Balbus in the children's books is a generic figure or whether it was intended as a reference to a specific historical person.

Do you see the difference? Does this answer your questions? Does this mitigate the problems my misjudgment has caused?

I wonder, did Balbur become something like an "elephant in the room?" --Tenmei (talk) 21:32, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Wow, at first I thought you had it mixed up, but I had not read your explanation well enough. I understand it now :) I will be honest with you, though. The way you put it confused me a bit, but in the end the sources you provided gave me enough to understand what you said. About the R. J. Schork "Latin and Roman culture in Joyce", the Balbus mentioned there (and consequently James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or just Portrait how Schork calls it) is on a graffito painted by some English schoolboy on a door of a closet. So that is not actual usage of Balbus in schoolbooks, but of course it shows that "Balbus built walls" was used to teach those kids. :) Oh yes, the Balbus actually is the Elder and not the Younger, because of the triumvirs and relation to Caesar. I noticed you already knew that ;) About the relation between Balbus and the elephant in the room phrases, I think (I'm not a native English and I don't live in 1915, so I don't know) that the phrase 'elephant in the room' was by the time worn out, but not as much as 'Balbus built walls' (at least from 1882-Gradatim, an easy Latin translation book- to 1915-Journal of education-). The writer of the Journal of education did find Balbus more amusing than the elephant, though. Thank you and greetings! 81.68.255.36 (talk) 23:47, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Removed the list of similiar phrases

I removed the entire list of similiar phrases, since in the two I checked, the only google hits I found on them clearly came from this article. As someone has added a long list of phrases they made up themselves, I see no reason to contain any of it unless someone first wants to show that these phrases actually exist. Here's what I removed:

(also "elephant in the sitting room", "elephant in the living room", "elephant in the parlor", "elephant in the corner", "elephant on the dinner table", "elephant in the kitchen", "elephant in the champagne room", and "elephant on the coffee table") --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 07:34, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Nostalgic Critic

I don't know what to make of the following paragraph. This diff was removed from the article. I don't know how to assess whether or how it may be relevant, on-topic:

Recently, web comedian Doug Walker, portraying his character, the "Nostalgia Critic", has used this term as the basis of a recurring gag in which an animated elephant (voiced by Walker) appears in the corner of the room whenever the Critic tries to ignore something that should be said. (such as forgetting to mention an actors suicide after mocking one of his performances, or stating that he has never made a really big mistake) The elephant proceeds to pester the Critic until he gives in and mentions what he was trying to ignore.

It has no citation support; and it could be mere advertising. This needs to be tweaked so that it's usefulness in this context is made clear. --Tenmei (talk) 14:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Added photo

Hey, how often do you find an idiom as a work of art by a famous artist?    ;)    ~Eric F:74.60.29.141 (talk) 15:49, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
~However, it just occurred to me that there might be a copyright problem (despite being licensed under Creative Commons 2.0 generic license) unless the actual work is discussed in the article - with perhaps a nice, cited, quote from a reputable source - such as the NYT article (see ref). If somebody is willing to give this a go - please do! Otherwise, I'll try, soon-ish —eventually (?).

"Similar" to elephant in the room?

The "elephant in the room" saying is in no way similar aside from the fact that they both involve large mammals. None of the citations back up this claim. The implicit justification for this claim seems to be the parenthetical "even if people do their best to ignore it," which has never been implied by common usage, and it's not even implied in the example in the section. If people often try to ignore the proverbial gorilla, perhaps someone can find an example where it's used in a way that this article alleges?

I deleted that section; it was restored. It doesn't belong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.177.218.164 (talk) 02:09, 6 August 2013 (UTC)