January 7, 2025

A secret in the Oxford sense: you may tell it to only one person at a time.

Lord Franks, (1905-1992), British philosopher and administrator, The Sunday Telegraph, 30 January 1977, Jay p.142

How often, when warned not to tell some small secret to even one soul, did you blab it away in no time? Have you never experienced the satisfaction of knowing something that only one other person knows, without having to prove to some third party that you are one of the two?

No one can be considered “in the know” if he has no secret information to share with others. In a land so conscious of status as Britain—no matter whether political, social, or financial, there are thus no secrets.