我們的母語里有“視而不見”、“充耳不聞”這樣的成語來表示人們對與自己無關(guān)的事情采取忽略的態(tài)度。有一些事，無關(guān)痛癢，可有可無的，被忽略了也就罷了。可是如果有些事情就像突然在你的房間里出現(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）指顯而易見而又被忽略的事實(shí)。這個(gè)短語傳遞的信息是：如果一頭大象出現(xiàn)在房間里，那是不可能被忽視的；由此，房間里的人假裝無視大象的存在可能是他們在關(guān)注一些小事或者無關(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)短語常用來指代顯而易見，但是因?yàn)榻苫蛘吲乱饘擂味荒骋蝗后w忽略的問題、方法或者有爭議的話題，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)不容忽視的問題。

相關(guān)閱讀

像chalk and cheese一樣“相差甚遠(yuǎn)”

反串 cross casting

誤撥電話 butt call/pocket call

你有l(wèi)ottery mentality嗎

（英語點(diǎn)津 Helen 編輯）

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