The Closet/Talk

Humm.

I'm not sure - as I'm not natively english speaking - but in Norway, we also refer to "skapet" (the closet), I _think_ the original here was "Å ha et skjellett gjemt i skapet", that is "Having a skeleton hidden in the closet". It referrs to anything you want to _hide_, that you do not want everybody to know.

I'm not sure how parallell languages develop, but I would think that 'The Closet' is NOT, as the article makes you think, mainly meant towards sexual behaviour, but _ANY_ behaviour you want to hide. I looked it up in WordNet, which says: indulging only covertly; "a closet alcoholic"; "closet liberals" [syn: {closet(a)}, {secret}].

So, _IF_ i'm right, I think a rewrite is in order, and that 'hidden sexuality' should be focused on as the main meaning of the word. Not _THE_ meaning of the word.

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It sure seems likely on its face that The Closet came from skeleton-in-the-closet, but it entered use as "The Closet" as a reference to closet homosexuality. --Dmerrill