An Elephant Never Forgets

Rhetoric has been around since the ancient Greeks.   Rhetoric is the art of persuasion.  A lot of the principles of rhetoric are still applicable today.  However, our view on one canon of rhetoric has changed.  Memory was an important part of persuasion.  Writing something down was weakness to early philosophers.  Plato and Socrates both said that writing destroys or weakens the mind.  Nowadays, we don’t expect people to memorize much.  Politicians read from teleprompters.  Writing is an essential part of conserving knowledge.

Elephants have amazing memories.  They are considered one of the smartest mammals with chimps and dolphins.  Elephants can remember other elephants and humans decades after meeting them.  They will avoid people wearing clothing like ones worn by the tribesmen that hunt them.  This is where the phrase an elephant never forgets comes from.  The phrase is used to describe someone who has a good memory.  I think it is most often used to talk about oneself.

Example: “I can’t believe you remembered my birthday.”  “Of course, I remembered.  An elephant never forgets.” 

There is also an older phrase that is similar.  The ancient Greeks said that a camel never forgets an injury.

There are so many interesting things about elephant intelligence.  I hope to be able to share more elephant stories in the future.  This is an interesting video about animal intelligence: https://youtu.be/lSXNqsOoURg.  This is the video that inspired today’s post: https://youtu.be/h31ljOLHniw

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Reference:
https://youtu.be/lSXNqsOoURg
https://youtu.be/h31ljOLHniw
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/do-elephants-really-never-forget-truth-about-proverbs-5329095.html
https://knowyourphrase.com/an-elephant-never-forgets