翻譯公司帶你學(xué)雙語(yǔ)知識:不容忽視的英文表達elephant in the room
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在關(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.