With a little digging, I have learned that the annoying title for the awful movie called Elephant is what I suspected: a reference to the elephant in the living room. An appropriately bad title for an awful film.
I read elsewhere that it was also lifted from a (Scandanavian?) short, so it's derivative as well.
(And this only matter because the stupid thing won both thte Palme d'Or (best pic) and Best Director at Cannes. And it's by the once-great Gus Van Sant, and about Columbine. All of which you probably read below.)