Is there a sentence or a word for an English-speaker to express this concept: a thing that is supposedly a secret, but everyone knows it, but still behave as if it were a secret? Since there’s a precise term in Italian for that, I was recently wondering that I wouldn’t know how to express that concisely in English.
Is there a sentence or a word for an English-speaker to express this concept: a thing that is supposedly a secret, but everyone knows it, but still behave as if it were a secret?
Since there’s a precise term in Italian for that, I was recently wondering that I wouldn’t know how to express that concisely in English.
“open secret”
The term you are looking for is “open secret”.
Curious… what is the term for that in Italian?
“Segreto di Pulcinella” (the French, “secret de Polichinelle”, is the same)