Seeing pink elephants

For other uses, see Pink elephant (disambiguation).

"Seeing pink elephants" is a euphemism for drunken hallucination, caused by alcoholic hallucinosis or delirium tremens. An early literary use of the term is by Jack London in 1913, who describes one kind of alcoholic, in the autobiographical John Barleycorn, as "the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, who is also half cocaine; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants. He is the type that gives rise to the jokes in the funny papers."[1]

For many decades before "pink elephant" became the standard drunken hallucination, people were known to "see snakes" or "see snakes in their boots."[2] Beginning in about 1889, and throughout the 1890s, writers made increasingly elaborate modifications to the standard "snakes" idiom. They changed the animal to rats, monkeys, giraffes, hippopotamuses or elephants - or combinations thereof; and added color - blue, red, green, pink - and many combinations thereof.

In 1896, for example, in what may be the earliest recorded example of a (partially) pink elephant, one of Henry Wallace Phillips' "Fables of our Times" referred to a drunken man seeing a "pink and green elephant and the feathered hippopotamus."[3] In 1897, a humorous notice about a play entitled, "The Blue Monkey," noted that, "We have seen it. Also the pink elephant with the orange trunk and the yellow giraffe with green trimmings. Also other things."[4]

"Pink elephants" became the dominant animal of drunken-hallucination choice by about 1905, although other animals and other colors were still regularly invoked. "Seeing snakes" or "seeing snakes in one's boots" was in regular use into the 1920s.[5]

A a well-known reference to pink elephants occurs in the 1941 Disney animated film Dumbo. Dumbo, having taken a drink of water from a bucket spiked with champagne, begins to hallucinate singing and dancing elephants in a segment known as "Pink Elephants on Parade".

Pink elephants do exist in nature, as it is possible for albino elephants to be pink, as well as white.[6]

In 2008, Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin used the phrase "pink elephants" to refer to Pro-life Republican women such as herself, Carly Fiorina, Sue Lowden and Jane Norton.[7]

Product references

The association between pink elephants and alcohol is reflected in the name of various alcoholic drinks. The "Pink Elephant" cocktail is made with vodka, grenadine, galliano and orange juice.[8][9] The Huyghe Brewery in Melle, Belgium features a pink elephant on the label of its Delirium Tremens beer. [10]

References

  1. ↑ pink Online Etymological Dictionary
  2. ↑ Jensen Brown, Peter. "The Colorful History and Etymology of "Pink Elephant"". Early Sports 'n' Pop-Culture History. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  3. ↑ Phillips, Henry Wallace (April 30, 1896). "The Man and the Serpent". Life 27 (696): 343.
  4. ↑ The Evening Times (Washington DC). December 6, 1897 http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024441/1897-12-06/ed-1/seq-4/. Retrieved 12 April 2016. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. ↑ Jensen Brown, Peter. "The Colorful History and Etymology of "Pink Elephant"". Early Sports 'n' Pop-Culture History. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  6. ↑ "BBC NEWS - Science & Environment - Pink elephant is caught on camera". bbc.co.uk.
  7. ↑ Spencer, Jean (14 May 2010). "Palin: ‘Look Out for Stampede of Pink Elephants'". The Wall Street Journal.
  8. ↑ Pink Elephant cocktail recipe at NextRecipe.com
  9. ↑ Pink Elephant cocktail recipe at Bar None Drinks
  10. ↑ Delirium Brewery. "Delirium Tremens". Delirium Tremens.
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