Duh Gorilla in duh Basement
It is time to cry wolf at the 800-pound gorilla in the room. I wish people would stop melding their mixaphors and giving us the fingers of speech they got from giant pundits on television.
The trouble is, they’re clashing their symbols.
It used to be simple. The 800-pound gorilla was supposed to be a fierce overweenied presence that keeps everyone terrified, and whatever the gorilla says goes. Dennis Miller used to call himself the 800-pound gorilla in the credits to his show, back when he was still funny, but actually he was no King Kong even then.
The elephant in the room. on the other hand, was trumpeted as the huge issue that nobody was acknowledging, that everyone pretended not to notice, which was why everyone was doomed to oblivion or a disreputability discharge.
An African elephant weighs, oh, 36,000 pounds and could wolf down a dozen gorillas, although they would have to be vegetables because, zoologically, elephants are not cannibals. An Indian elephant weighs less, but if one were sitting on the hassock in your living room, it would spell the collapse of your ottoman empire.
And now there’s an elephant in debasement!
The linguistic clam sauce of the Internet has inundated the once-proud English language in a mailstorm of mongrelization because people bursting to say what they think don’t think about what they say, like the ones now confusing the 800-pound gorilla with the elephant in the room. And, fanning this feeding frenzy, there was a troupe of gorilla commercials for some financial company out of whom the subprime mortgage fiasco has since made a monkey.
“You really should look into this retirement plan,†the gorilla says to a designated patsy, “but don’t mind me – I’m just the 800-pound gorilla in the room.†And, hell, it isn’t even a room; it’s a fucking elevator! Some wide-eyed Madison Avenue enfant terrible must have overheard the term guerilla marketing and wet his bananas.
But no matter how misbegotten, the mangled metaphor is spreading like welfare, even in the intellectual etherium. I just saw a letter to the editor of The Nation complimenting Katrina vanden Heuvel for calling attention to the 800-pound gorilla in the room – in this case the fact that the constitution is unconstitutional or some such nitpick.
No wonder they’re teaching English as a second language!
This is exactly the kind of lofty cultural palisade that tyrannosaurus wrecks.
6 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
At least they aren’t calling the 799 pound Gorilla (in the room).
Comment by Jim — September 2, 2008 @ 9:42 pm
But that may show up later, on a NutriSystems commercial.
Comment by Al — September 2, 2008 @ 10:31 pm
Ez 4 u 2 say. (LOL) What do u have against l-e-fints?
Comment by Steve Alber — September 3, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
Well, this is a political blog, you know, and the elephant is not exactly bipartisan. I’d like to trade in our donkey for an 800-pound gorilla — and then send him to terrorize school boards who ban the teaching of evolution.
Comment by Al — September 3, 2008 @ 4:45 pm
I don’t understand why you’re so hot–to-gallop? You’re turning me into a real bin case though. Let’s get down to brass tax here; this post about “melding mixaphors†is too verbose…you know a picture is worth 10,000 words (inflation). I think the real 800 pound gorilla here is that you’ve finally shown your metal. Get to the point in your blog instead of giving us the whole sheepbang.
Comment by Paul — September 8, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
Now you’re talking, Paul. You’re an 800 pound gorilla in debasement of the English language.
Comment by Al — September 8, 2008 @ 9:26 pm