Why 800 pound gorilla

Critics assumed Obama meant either "green" or "wet behind the ears," both of which mean young and inexperienced, but aren't usually placed together.

Either way, his point was made. One particular idiom blend pops up with such regularity that it appears poised to replace the phrase from which it sprung. In a recent New York Times story about the economic state of Youngstown, Ohio, a community development director called the city's large swath of vacant properties the "pound gorilla in the room.

Its origins can be found in a riddle: Question: "Where does an pound gorilla sleep? FumbleFingers FumbleFingers k 45 45 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. The research is interesting thank you but I don't think people look up the number before making the reference. As an idiom, it's not the sort of thing you fact-check. If you understand the theory of evolution you'll know that even a small advantage rapidly takes over. If only 1 in people check for a suitable number, that will decisively dominate after just a few years.

The joke seems to have gained traction around - check Google Books for the first decade and you'll soon see it was repeated with many different weights initially.

But once lb started to rise above the common herd, it soon wiped the floor with the opposition. It doesn't need a fact-check for the existing front-runner to start imprinting itself on peoples memories. When a meme reaches a certain level, people are exposed to it over and over again - and this happens very easily and often on the internet. Steve Well, we're getting exposed to it over and over right here.

If I ever repeated the joke back then I'd have just randomly chosen any of those numbers. Kyle Pearson Kyle Pearson 2, 17 17 silver badges 16 16 bronze badges. I had no idea that actual gorilla weights figured into it. That explains why was initially picked, but doesn't explain why it has been so faithfully repeated, instead of inflating over time or just rounding up to an even 1, Where do you get pounds as the average weight?

It's more like pounds for an adult female and pounds for an adult male. You're right, Hugo. I've been had! Wikipedia: "Adult males, also called silverbacks, range in weight — kg — lb. Occasionally, a silverback of over kg lb has been recorded in the wild.

Obese gorillas in captivity have reached a weight of kg lb. There is a great new yorker cartoon. A gorilla at a hotel on a weigh scale and the clerk saying "Yes an lb gorilla can sleep where he wants, but for a lb gorilla we are full" — mgb. So the exaggeration can go this far, but going further would start to feel childish, like saying "a million billion squillion pound gorilla"?

Farlex, Inc 25 Feb. Want to see more videos from Idioms. Subscribe to our YouTube channel! See the video above for full explanation. As long as our politicians work for oil lobbyists, nothing will ever change.

It has been used figuratively since at least the s. I've written once before about how gradually the meaning of the term "the elephant in the room" is changing. It means something with a large presence that doesn't get talked about. However, more and more I see it used this way from a recent promotion for a webinar :. Jordan shares with us how YouTube is the elephant in the room.

What does he mean by that? That's pretty much the opposite of the meaning, and I realized that it's taking the place of the pound-gorilla, which was the previously popular phrase for something powerful.