An open secret is a concept or idea (often in, but not necessarily limited to, government and military circles) that is "officially" secret or restricted in knowledge, but is actually widely known; or refers to something which is widely known to be true, but which none of the people most intimately concerned is willing to categorically acknowledge in public.
Examples of military open secrets:
An example of open secret in politics: it may be widely known that an individual government minister holds a particular opinion, but is at present unable to express that opinion publicly because it is contrary to the formally expressed view of the government of which he or she is a member. Area 51 is a nickname for a military base located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States For the computer game see Delta Force (video game. For the movie see The Delta Force (film. Israel is widely believed to be the sixth country in the world to develop Nuclear weapons and to be one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized SOSUS, an acronym for SOund SUrveillance System, was a chain of underwater listening posts located across the northern Atlantic Ocean ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a Signals intelligence (SIGINT collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory
The book Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. includes the religion of Bokononism, outlawed in the fictional San Lorenzo. For other uses see Cat's cradle (disambiguation. Cat's Cradle is a 1963 Science fiction Novel by Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr (November 11 1922 – April 11 2007 (ˈvɒnəgət was a prolific and genre-bending American Novelist known for works blending Satire, Black Bokononism is the fictional Religion practiced by many of the characters in Kurt Vonnegut 's novel Cat's Cradle. There are severe punishments for anyone found to be a practitioner of this religion. The open secret is that while everyone in San Lorenzo denies being a Bokononist, they all are. This includes even the dictator of the island, by whose command it was outlawed.
The term has also been applied to public knowledge of a person's sexuality. For example, the composer Benjamin Britten was a homosexual, but never identified himself as such. Edward Benjamin Britten Baron Britten, OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976 was an English Composer, conductor, Nevertheless, it was widely known and was thus an open secret. [1]
References
- ^ Philip Brett, 'Musicality, Essentialism, and the Closet', Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology (London: Routledge, 1994), p18.
Dictionary
open secret
-noun
- A fact that is widely known, but not acknowledged openly.
- (dated) Information that is not widely known, despite being freely available.
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