Noncompositional

Let’s talk about secrets, and more specifically, about revealing secrets. A secret is some piece of information known to some individual or group, which that group (or some subgroup of it) wants to remain unknown to those who do not know it. To keep a secret is to not tell any unknowing soul the information. To reveal a secret is to tell someone who doesn’t know the secret about it - or is it? Well, here are some possibilities:

• telling someone you know knows the information
• telling someone you know doesn’t know
• telling someone who you aren’t sure if they know

The last two are probably revealing a secret. The first might get you a reprimand (Don’t just go around babbling that to anyone! What if I hadn’t known…, for instance), or it might just be a normal activity. Depends on the secretive group.

Now, what would it mean to accidentally reveal the secret? (hint: see post title) Well, it probably means that you told the secret to someone who didn’t know the information carelessly, by a slip of the tongue, as it were. You may or may not have known that the person knew the information. And, importantly for this discussion, as soon as you realize that you uttered that information, you realize your error.

Ah, but there’s a whole other set of possibilities if we consider the possibility that you don’t realize that some piece of information is a secret. First possibility: your friend tells you some information intended to be a secret, but you figure it’s already common knowledge. Say your friend told you that she was going to join the Navy, and so you figure that this information is widely known, if not among her other friends than at least among her immediate family. But you’re in luck, because your friend hasn’t told anyone else yet (what a good friend you must be, then). So, you bring it up in conversation with her parents (So, now that your daughter is leaving college to join the Navy…), and only then, when the parents are {raging mad / unconscious on the floor / whatever}, do you realize your mistake. Your utterance of the secret was made perfectly intentionally, with specific goals in mind, though importantly you assumed it was common knowledge when you uttered it. The question is: did you do anything accidentally?

Second possibility: your friend Joan told you in confidence that she actually doesn’t like her boyfriend’s red cabbage recipes. You assume that it’s probably not common knowledge among all of your mutual acquaintances, and figure that you can go around telling anyone (like, say, the boyfriend’s buddies). So you do: Hey, Travis, it turns out that Joan actually doesn’t like Mitch’s red cabbage recipes. Wouldn’t believe it to watch her wolf that stuff down, but hey… (for instance). This time, your addressee’s reaction won’t be something that will make you realize you’ve just revealed a secret. It is only later, when the girlfriend is raging mad at you for telling her boyfriend’s buddies her deep, dark secret that you realize you’ve screwed up. But did you accidentally reveal a very important secret?

And more importantly, how do you apologize for making these absolutely horrible mistakes? (and no, she will never tell you anything ever ever again)

First case:

1. Joan, before your parents call, I should let you know… I may have accidentally mentioned your secret about joining the Navy. Sorry!
2. Joan, before your parents call, I should let you know… I may have accidentally mentioned that you’re dropping out to join the Navy. Sorry!

Second case, subcase 1: [just after Joan tells you that the cabbage thing was a secret]

1. Oh [expletive]! You know…I think I accidentally told {that / that secret / your secret (about the red cabbage)} to Travis. Sorry!
2. Oh [expletive]! You know…I think I accidentally told Travis that you don’t like your boyfriend’s red cabbage recipes. Sorry!

Second case, subcase 2: [a day after Joan tells you not to mention the cabbage thing...you didn't tell her about your revealing it right afterwards because you forgot about it, or because you were nervous about letting her know right then]

1. Uh…Joan? You know…I think I accidentally told Travis {that / that secret / your secret (about the red cabbage)}. Sorry!
2. Uh…Joan? You know…I think I accidentally told Travis that you don’t like your boyfriend’s red cabbage recipes. Sorry!

And now the fun part: in each of the above cases, which utterances are felicitous? Let’s call the two versions that-clause apologies and secret apologies. It’s all very wishy-washy for me, but I’d say that in Case 1, the secret apology is out, though mostly because the speaker just doesn’t have definitive proof that the information was a secret, just indirect (though quite strong) evidence that it was, namely the parents’ verbal and nonverbal reactions to finding out the news. However, if you were to use the secret apology, Joan might well think it normal, since it was always a secret to her. For Case 2:1, again I’d have to say that although both seem fine, the that-clause might be preferred, though I’m not sure why. I can think of two possible reasons: use of the word secret in the immediately preceding discourse, extremely recent revelation of the secrecy of the information (territory effects with recently-acquired information). Eh, both are fine, I guess. Finally, for Case 2:2, both versions seem equally fine. The two reasons I outlined above wouldn’t apply, by the way.

Maybe others have different judgements, but this sort of surprised me. Since the actual informing act was not accidental, it would seem that the message-encoding that-clauses would be dispreferred, but other factors seem to outweigh that consideration.

Only thing is, if each of these cases can be described with “someone accidentally revealed a secret” (maybe not all of them can), where does all the meaning come from, exactly? Which of these words is polysemous, and what combinations of senses give you the right meaning. And does it have to do with reveal, which isn’t even in any of the utterances I made up? (yeah, sure, it could have been) The answer’s probably much simpler than I’m making it out to be.

(Oh, and why the Meta tag? Eh, I just added the RDF and Atom feed links to various parts of the page, in case anyone wants them)