Reader's question: That Sue Ellen just can't keep her mouth shut! I invited her to our surprise party for Mary, and she went and spilled the beans to Mary. Could you explain “spill the beans”?

My comments:

Suppose you’re holding a bag of beans but the bag has a lot of holes in it. The beans soon spill out littering the whole floor….

Metaphorically speaking if one spills the beans, one reveals a secret, especially when one shouldn’t.

In other words, this phrase is especially widely used in situations where revealing certain secrets may upset people and cause problems.

In the above example, when Ellen “went and spilled the beans to Mary”, the “surprise” element of the party is lost.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

Zhang Xin has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.