Reader question:

What does this sentence – The defendant denied that he had touched the computer, but his fingerprints on the keyboard gave the game away – mean? Particularly, what does the expression "gave the game away" mean?

My comments:

The defendant said he did not touch the computer. But his fingerprints say otherwise – they were found on the keyboard, meaning that he did touch it. In other words, his fingerprints gave the secret away.

The expression "giving the game away" means just that, revealing a secret someone's been trying to hide. "The game" stands for the surprise element, the tricky or fun part of an activity, a scheme, a plan, a joke, etc.

The Longman dictionary defines the expression as "to spoil a surprise or secret by doing or saying something that lets someone guess what the secret is: Lynn game the game away by laughing when Kim walked in." In this example, Kim instantly knew they were planning some kind of mischief on him when Lynn laughed – she gave the game, the fun part of the game, away, thus failing the group.

Here are more examples from the media. Explanations (in brackets and perhaps redundant) are mine.

1. A telltale puff of radioactive gas may give the game away

AFTER 8 years of monitoring small earthquakes in the Dead Sea rift valley, Israeli seismologists report that the quakes were more likely to occur after a rise in emissions of the radioactive gas radon. Although the signal didn't occur before every quake, the researchers say the link is statistically significant - a controversial claim, as it is generally accepted that individual quakes are impossible to predict.

Radon emissions have been touted as a possible quake precursor since the discovery that levels of the gas in water rose sharply before a major earthquake in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1966. Advocates believe that as underground strain nears the threshold for triggering an earthquake, it releases radon that has accumulated in the rock from radioactive decay. Yet the few reported examples could not be reproduced, and no one had collected systematic data.

- New Scientist magazine, June 14, 2003.

(According to the story, the secret to predicting earthquakes may lie in monitoring radioactive gas emissions from rocks. Telltale – tells the tale.)

2. How chairs give the game away

If you think your open-plan office is a hierarchy-free zone, take a look at the seating. Firms spend a lot on office chairs because they wear out quickly, and have to conform to health and safety directives. So the lowliest office workers have quite high-tech chairs, with foam-filled seats, swivels, castors and levers to adjust the height. This has created a burgeoning market in swankier "executive" chairs for managers, with higher backs, leather covers, wider seats, greater adjustability and more generous padding, including "memory foam", which responds to an individual's body shape. The booming areas in the office furniture industry are those that either save on space or allow bosses to buy kudos. So much for the spontaneity and egalitarianism of the "borderless office".

- New Statesman, November 15, 2004.

(Sit well. According to the story, chairs show that some people are more equal than others in the office)

3. Stephen King: Politicians' acts of denial give the game away

When it all begins to go wrong, politicians typically adopt one of three strategies. They deny. They claim it's worse elsewhere. Or they blame others for their woes.

The UK economy must, then, be going horribly wrong. Our political leaders adopted all three tactics last week, thereby betraying their deep-rooted fears.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, offered the denial. In an interview with the BBC, Mr Brown said: "We've seen house prices rise by about 180 per cent over the last 10 years and they have risen by about 18 per cent over the last three years, so a 2.5 per cent fall is something that is containable." He was referring to the latest decline in the Halifax house price index.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made the claim that things are worse elsewhere. On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, he said: "The IMF has down-rated every country's growth forecast in the light of what's been happening in the world economy [as if the world economy is something other than a collection of countries]. However, they have lowered their expectations in relation to us by less than other countries."

It was Mr Brown, though, who chose to blame others for the UK's latest economic turbulence. Apparently, the world is "in a difficult situation arising from what's happening in America".

Mr Brown's first quote is a denial of the laws of gravity. While it's possible that house prices have reached a higher sustainable level, history and damaged reputations suggest otherwise. It was, after all, Irving Fisher, the great American economist, who famously (and presumably regrettably) said just before the 1929 stock market crash that "stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau". While there's no guarantee that what goes up must come down, the history of the UK housing market strongly suggests that the 2.5 per cent decline recorded by Halifax in the latest month will, sadly, mark the beginnings of a major slide.

- The Independent, April 14, 2008.

(According to the author, politicians' saying it ain't so reveals the opposite, that it is so – otherwise politicians would not have needed to keep denying it.)