Sort of blend: "the 900 pound elephant in the room"

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

       I heard an interesting sort of blend on TV today. Political commentator Sam Donaldson spoke of "the 900 pound elephant in the room." He of course meant "the elephant in the room" and got mixed up with "the 900 pound gorilla" (which is not normally in the room; btw, the gorilla's weight can also be 600 or 800 pounds).

    A quick check of Google shows that the average weight of the adult female Asian elephant is 6,000 pounds, while the male averages 11,000 pounds.  900 pounds would be downright anorexic.

Gerald Cohen

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