{"id":2654,"date":"2022-01-15T16:41:44","date_gmt":"2022-01-15T16:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=2654"},"modified":"2022-01-24T16:18:39","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T16:18:39","slug":"pink-elephants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=2654","title":{"rendered":"Pink Elephants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A few years ago, our friends from Zimbabwe gave me a small pink elephant \u2014 it\u2019s really pretty cool, it was hand made in Zimbabwe and I have it sitting on a shelf in my office. At the time I received it, I thought it was kind of a strange gift, but my friends said, \u201cwe thought you\u2019d appreciate it. You\u2019ve probably seen a few of these,\u201d I remembered that \u201cseeing pink elephants\u201d was, and is, an euphemism for drunken hallucination caused by intoxication or withdrawal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember hearing the expression when I was younger, but I hadn\u2019t heard it much recently. In fact, I don\u2019t remember the last time I heard it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as I am want to do sometimes, I decided to find out how the phrase came to be a part of our language. Like a lot of things, there\u2019s no clear answer and at least a few \u201ctheories\u201d as to how pink elephants became one of the more popular things to hallucinate about rather than snakes, giraffes, monkeys or other animals of various colors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One theory is that is was fueled by the 1941 Disney film Dumbo. The film contained a scene of Dumbo\u2019s champagne-fueled psychedelic hallucination of Pink Elephants on Parade. The problem with that theory is that before Dumbo saw them in 1941, people had been seeing pink elephants for many years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many people think that the phrase became popular in 1884 when P.T. Barnum attempted \u2014 and failed \u2014 to bring a white elephant to the United States. The \u201cwhite elephant\u201d was heavily hyped but was a big disappointment to most people \u2014 it turned out to be more of a \u201cpink elephant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another interesting story goes like this\u2026 in the December 1938 edition of Action Comics #7, Superman lifts an elephant over his head while performing at the circus. As with most stories, there has to be a non-believer in the crowd and in this case, it\u2019s a drunk. Upon witnessing Superman\u2019s feat of strength, the drunk says, \u201cI don\u2019t mind seeing pink elephants, but (hic) this is too much!\u201d
Nonetheless, over the years, drunk people are often said to \u201csee pink elephants\u201d \u2014 although alcohol rarely induces hallucinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But do pink elephants really exist? As a matter of fact, yes. Albino-elephants \u2014 that are far more common in Asian elephants than African elephants \u2014 are reddish-brown or pink. In Thailand, they are called chang phueak, which, when translated, is pink elephant. I should also probably add that desert elephants in Africa sometimes give themselves a dust-bath, which makes them \u201clook\u201d pink. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another interesting fact uncovered by my extensive research is that elephants (especially Asiatic elephants) are known to turn nasty on people who smell of alcohol. There have been a couple of cases of drunks being killed by circus elephants. So \u2014 if you\u2019re drunk and you see an elephant of any color, it might be safest to keep away \u2014 just in case\u2026.
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, our friends from Zimbabwe gave me a small pink elephant \u2014 it\u2019s really pretty cool, it was hand made in Zimbabwe and I have it sitting on a shelf in my office. At the time I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2654"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2679,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654\/revisions\/2679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}