Transcript of “Seen the Elephant and Heard the Owl”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, my name is Christine. I’m calling from Santa Cruz, California, and I really enjoy your show.
Thank you very much.
I have a question. My father sailed all over the world in the 1930s and 40s, and then later we had a family boat and sailed up and down the West Coast.
And he used to say something frequently to us that I think came from his sailing experiences.
But he would say, I’ve seen the elephant and heard the owl.
And to me, that meant you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I’ve been there.
But I don’t know really the origins of that saying.
And I just wondered if you had any history or experience with seeing it in other places.
I have not.
So, Christine, when he said, I’ve seen the elephant and I’ve heard the owl, what was happening?
Were you trying to fib as a kid?
No, nothing like that.
I mean, I think he was just more saying, I’ve had that experience.
So, I don’t know.
It was just something he said regularly to imply that he’s had a lot of world experience.
Right.
He’s worldly.
That makes a lot of sense.
And that is the way that I’ve seen it, too, that he’s experienced in the ways of the world.
Or sometimes you see it a little different where somebody says, I’m up to date or I’m informed or I’m no greenhorn.
You know, I’m no spring chicken, meaning that I’ve got some years under my belt and I know how things work.
And maybe he meant some of that, too.
Yeah, like this is not my first rodeo.
Yeah, not my first rodeo.
Exactly.
Do you have any origins for that term?
We do. As a matter of fact, absolutely we do. And I think you’re going to love this. Those are both separate expressions. I’ve seen the elephant and I’ve heard the owl. I’ve heard the owl. We don’t know very much about at all. It dates back to around the 1930s. It pops up in Western fiction, you know, cowboy stories. And it might have just been invented for those.
There’s some idea that it might come from Native American tales, but it’s hard to sort out how much of that was invented by white people making up Native American tales and how much of it was authentic.
It’s really difficult to untangle that mess.
But we know it’s from the 1930s.
However, seeing the elephant, we know a lot a bit about that.
This is an American version of an expression that actually goes back to the 1500s.
The American version starts in the 1830s, but the version before that is to have seen the lions.
And this is probably a reference to a menagerie that was kept at the Tower of London.
From about the year 1200 onward, there were all kinds of strange creatures kept at the Tower of London.
Polar bear, lions, leopards, ostriches, monkeys, and other creatures. So if you had seen the lions, you had been to London, which of course was a major world city, and it meant that you were worldly just to be in London.
But also you had seen these strange creatures from other parts of the world. You knew some stuff that anybody from the boonies or the sticks or the bush didn’t know.
And likely by the time I’ve seen the lion made it to the United States, the lion was replaced with an elephant because in the U.S. you were more likely to have seen an elephant, say, in a traveling circus.
Right. That’s really interesting.
Well, thank you so much for the research.
And your program is fabulous and fascinating, and I appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Christine.
Take care now.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
And the term to see the elephant was often associated with having seen military combat, right?
I mean, in some instances of that expression, it’s a world weariness, too.
It’s not, you know, I’m so smart or I’m no greenhorn, but I’ve seen a lot of the world.
Yeah, I’ve seen the elephant and I’m done with it.
A lot of times it was like, you know, I’m not doing this again.
I’m finished.
