 不容忽視的elephant in the room
[ 2009-05-26 16:28 ]
我們的母語(yǔ)里有“視而不見(jiàn)”、“充耳不聞”這樣的成語(yǔ)來(lái)表示人們對(duì)與自己無(wú)關(guān)的事情采取忽略的態(tài)度。有一些事，無(wú)關(guān)痛癢，可有可無(wú)的，被忽略了也就罷了?？墒侨绻行┦虑榫拖裢蝗辉谀愕姆块g里出現(xiàn)一頭大象（elephant in the room）那么明顯，可你還是在忽略，那就一定有原因了。
"Elephant in the room" is an English idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there might be concerning themselves with relatively small and even irrelevant matters, compared to the looming big one.
Elephant in the room（房間里的大象）指顯而易見(jiàn)而又被忽略的事實(shí)。這個(gè)短語(yǔ)傳遞的信息是：如果一頭大象出現(xiàn)在房間里，那是不可能被忽視的；由此，房間里的人假裝無(wú)視大象的存在可能是他們?cè)陉P(guān)注一些小事或者無(wú)關(guān)緊要的事情，而并不把注意力放在這個(gè)大物件上。
The term is used to refer to a question, problem, solution, or controversial issue that is obvious, but which is ignored by a group of people, generally out of embarrassment or taboo, such as an issue that involves a social taboo like race or religion.
這個(gè)短語(yǔ)常用來(lái)指代顯而易見(jiàn)，但是因?yàn)榻苫蛘吲乱饘擂味荒骋蝗后w忽略的問(wèn)題、方法或者有爭(zhēng)議的話題，比如種族、宗教等一些社會(huì)禁忌的話題。
For example:
Financing schools has become a problem about equal to having an elephant in the living room. It's so big you just can't ignore it.
籌集學(xué)費(fèi)已經(jīng)像房間里的大象一樣，成了一個(gè)不容忽視的問(wèn)題。
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誤撥電話 butt call/pocket call
你有l(wèi)ottery mentality嗎
（英語(yǔ)點(diǎn)津 Helen 編輯）
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