Background
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See also: White elephant (animal) |
The term derives from the sacred white elephants kept by Southeast Asian monarchs in Burma, Thailand (Siam), Laos and Cambodia.[2] To possess a white elephant was regarded—and is still regarded in Thailand and Burma—as a sign that the monarch reigned with justice and power, and that the kingdom was blessed with peace and prosperity. The opulence expected of anyone who owned a beast of such stature was great. Monarchs often exemplified their possession of white elephants in their formal titles (e.g., Hsinbyushin, lit. 'Lord of the White Elephant' and the third monarch of the Konbaung dynasty).[3] Because the animals were considered sacred and laws protected them from labor, receiving a gift of a white elephant from a monarch was simultaneously a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because the animal was sacred and a sign of the monarch's favour, and a curse because the recipient now had an animal that was expensive to maintain, could not be given away, and could not be put to much practical use.
In the West, the term "white elephant", relating to an expensive burden that fails to meet expectations, was first used in the 17th century and became widespread in the 19th century.[4] According to one source it was popularized following P. T. Barnum's experience with an elephant named Toung Taloung that he billed as the "Sacred White Elephant of Burma". After much effort and great expense, Barnum finally acquired the animal from the King of Siam only to discover that his "white elephant" was actually dirty grey in color with a few pink spots.[5]
The expressions "white elephant" and "gift of a white elephant" came into common use in the middle of the nineteenth century.[6] The phrase was attached to "white elephant swaps" and "white elephant sales" in the early twentieth century.[7] Many church bazaars held "white elephant sales" where donors could unload unwanted bric-à-brac, generating profit from the phenomenon that "one man's trash is another man's treasure" and the term has continued to be used in this context.[8]
In modern usage, the term now often refers in addition to an extremely expensive building project that fails to deliver on its function or becomes very costly to maintain.[9][10]
Examples include prestigious but uneconomic infrastructure projects such as airports,[11] dams,[12] bridges,[13][14] shopping malls[15] and football stadiums.[16][17] The American Oakland Athletics baseball team has used a white elephant as a symbol and usually its main or alternate logo since 1902, originally in sarcastic defiance of John McGraw's 1902 characterization of the new team as a "white elephant".[18] The Al Maktoum International Airport on the outskirts of Dubai has also been named a white elephant.[19] Examples of rail-related white elephants include in Japan, where it was feared that the Yurikamome at Odaiba would end up as a multibillion-yen white elephant,[20] and in Singapore, paper cutouts of white elephants were placed next to the completed but unopened Buangkok MRT station on the North East Line in 2005, in protest at its non-opening. The station eventually opened the following year.[21] White Elephant is also a name of a former Polish astronomical observatory built in the Carpathian Mountains in 1938 (now Ukraine).
The term has also been applied to outdated or underperforming military projects like the U.S. Navy's Alaska-class cruiser.[22][23] In Austria, the term "white elephant" means workers who have little or no use, but cannot be dismissed.[24][circular reference]
