<P> Elephant in the room is an English - language metaphorical idiom for an obvious problem or risk that no one wants to discuss . </P> <P> It is based on the idea / thought that something as conspicuous as an elephant can appear to be overlooked in codified social interactions, and that the sociology / psychology of repression also operates on the macro scale . </P> <P> In 1814, Ivan Andreevich Krylov (1769--1844), poet and fabulist, wrote a fable entitled "The Inquisitive Man" which tells of a man who goes to a museum and notices all sorts of tiny things, but fails to notice an elephant . The phrase became proverbial . Fyodor Dostoevsky in his novel' Demons' wrote,' Belinsky was just like Krylov's Inquisitive Man, who didn't notice the elephant in the museum ...' </P> <P> The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first recorded use of the phrase, as a simile, in The New York Times on June 20, 1959: "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 ." </P>

Where does the saying the elephant in the room come from