elephant cage
n.— «A structure similar to a fence of tall steel posts stands out in the distance. “We call that the elephant cage,” an officer says. It is the property of the 6921st Security Wing, a high-power electronic eavesdropping outfit that prefers to be identified, if at all, as having something to do with “communications.”» —“Jets From U.S. Base in Japan Patrol Near Soviet” by Robert Trumbull in Misawa, Japan New York Times June 12, 1966. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Sara in Madison, Wisconsin, was reading an old edition of The Joy of Cooking and came across a recipe that described a cake’s ingredients as earrings for an elephant. She couldn’t discern whether the authors meant that was a good thing...
The English language has been greatly enriched by borrowings from the languages of Asia. Barely scratching the surface, we have from Japan skosh, tycoon, tsunami, origami, yen, kimono, futon, and karaoke. From Chinese comes yen, kowtow, gung ho, and...