Change That Idiom

Idioms are words collocated together that become fossilized. Their meaning is fixed in a way in which you cannot deduce the meaning of the group via each of the words. For example if one were to read the phrase: "the elephant in the room" it would simply mean a large animal with a trunk in a room. Of course this idiom does not mean this. Rather it is the group of words working as a team that has a very set meaning. For example: "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours", has nothing to do with backs or scratching - rather the phrase in totality means "you do something for me and I will do something for you". Of course, this is no problem for native speakers who learn these expressions effortlessly as they grow up. However, for those learning English as a second language these idioms can be a problem. So let's make them more tansparent. Let's start with:

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

We all know the saying, and we have all been in the situation. There is some topic that is screaming to be addressed but nobody says anything. Maybe there is some kind of taboo against addressing it, or it might be embarrassing. Of course, if it really were an elephant then you would not be able to ignore it, because elephants don’t just stand there, not for very long periods of time. Well, maybe if it were sleeping then it might stand for a few hours, but eventually it is going to become a topic of conversation when it starts smashing the furniture or tossing you or your conversation partner out the window. So that saying, predicated as it is on the seemingly and incongruously obvious, really ought to have a different thing representing it. Think how confusing this is for the earnest learner of English as a second language. He's thinking - "it can't mean the topic that's being ignored, because sooner or later an elephant could not be ignored." So it should be an object that is out of place, but not one that can act to require comment. It should be something that could be ignored indefinitely, like a giant rock, or a tree, or an automobile. Those are all big things that would dominate the room, and they are things that stands out – they’re not supposed to be in the room. However they could be ignored despite their seemingly obvious presence. With this small change the expression makes more sense and will be much more easily understood by all those who are learning English as another language. So let’s change that saying to”the boulder in the room”.