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

[Doug Harris]

And you can be sure that, at that (900 lb) weight, it's either red or
white.
One might also suspect that if it was found with DC's belt-tightening way
it might be referred to, in another mixed metaphor, as the declawed 900 lb
elephant.
doug



On Sun, 21 Jan 2007 12:10:53 -0500, Scot LaFaive
<spiderrmonkey at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Scot LaFaive <spiderrmonkey at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Sort of blend: "the 900 pound elephant in the room"
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>
> That's why it's so noticeable.
>
> Scot
>
>
>> From: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
>> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Sort of blend: "the 900 pound elephant in the room"
>> Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 10:42:11 -0600
>>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
>> Subject:      Sort of blend: "the 900 pound elephant in the room"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>        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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