Idioms: agenda - a hidden a.

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Idiom(s) of the day: a hidden agenda

My category (Russian-to-English translation): Информация (Information). Понимание и знание (Understanding and knowledge). Раскрытие и сокрытие (Revealing and hiding).

Explanation(s):

Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Idioms, 2004 (CCDI):

If you say that someone has a hidden agenda, you suspect that they are secretly trying to achieve a particular thing while they appear to be doing something else.

Lingvo (www.lingvo.com):

a hidden motive or intention behind an overt action, policy, etc

the secret purpose behind a plan or activity that you do not tell other people about – used to show disapproval

Babylon (www.babylon.com):

true intentions that are kept secret, plans that are not revealed

a secret or ulterior motive for something

(disapproving) the secret intention behind what sb says or does

a secret reason for doing something

an ulterior motive

a secret reason for doing something, because you will get an advantage from it

An undisclosed plan, especially one with an ulterior motive

If you say that someone has a hidden agenda, you are criticizing them because you think they are secretly trying to achieve or cause a particular thing, while they appear to be doing something else.

secret plan to control the meeting or decisions

The true meaning behind words and actions, often contradicting them. The expression is believed to have emerged following discussions in British educational circles in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the concept of a 'hidden curriculum' in schools (going against the actual curriculum that was taught) was much talked about. In 1990, a British film about the 'shoot-to-kill' policy of security forces in Northern Ireland was given the title Hidden Agenda. The phenomenon is also sometimes referred to currently as the subtext.

an idiomatic phrase used to refer to the subtext which discretely drives a conversation, meeting or other activity

Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary v4.7:

an often duplicitously undisclosed plan or motive

Translation(s):

CCDI:

Тайный умысел; секретные планы

Lingvo (www.lingvo.com):

тайные планы, скрытые мотивы (фильмы с таким названием были сняты в Великобритании и США)

Babylon (www.babylon.com):

Multitran (www.multitran.ru):

тайный план; скрытый замысел; подводные камни (hidden agendas); скрытая повестка дня; скрытые (как правило, недобрые) намерения

Multilex (www.multilex.ru):

Examples:

CCDI:

The unions fear these tactics are part of a hidden agenda to reduce pay and conditions throughout the company.

The hidden agenda of the Government’s prison privatization policy seems to have been exposed.

It was typical of his forthright determination that, while others debated wide issues and hidden agendas, he saw a wrong and tried to right it.

Lingvo (www.lingvo.com):

That's our 'hidden' agenda, plain and simple. — Вот и все наши «тайные» планы, ясные и простые. Now, with Hidden Agenda, your students can try their hands at governing a simulated country. — Теперь, с помощью «Тайного плана», ваши студенты могут попробовать себя в управлении моделью страны. (речь идёт о компьютерной обучающей игре)

when someone comes in for a physical … there is often a hidden agenda — John McPhee

Is there a hidden agenda?

Voters suspected a hidden political agenda. Was there a hidden agenda behind this decision?

Babylon (www.babylon.com):

There are fears of a hidden agenda behind this new proposal.

The prime minister denied that the new visa requirements were part of a hidden agenda to reduce immigration.

He accused foreign nations of having a hidden agenda to harm French influence...

The board has a hidden agenda. We don't know their real plans.

Those who vote Yes for the new constitution will vote ostensibly for reform in South Africa but will in effect be voting for the permanent rejection of the black majority - unless, as the Government repeatedly denies, there is a 'hidden agenda' for dramatic new reforms after the vote is won. Financial Times (5 October 1983)
A Labour government, grabbing vast new powers and dispensing patronage on a scale never seen before, will give [political correctness] impetus, official backing and legislative authority. Here indeed is the hidden agenda, which does not figure in the manifesto because much of it will be enacted by private member's bills in a parliament with a 'progressive' majority. The Sunday Telegraph (29 March 1992)

Multitran:

there is a hidden agenda— за этим что-то кроется; что-то здесь не так

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) v4.0:

▸ hidden agenda n. a concealed or unexpressed intent behind the ostensible purpose of an action, statement, etc.; an ulterior aim or motive (cf. agenda n.)

1955 Jrnl. Business 28 13/1 Most groups, in other words, have ‘*hidden agendas’. These are the inter-personal feeling, the individual strivings for power or for approval, which exist but are not expressed. 1971 Psychol. Abstr. Feb. 317/2 Recent studies have shown that the ‘hidden agenda’ of schooling educates students' attitudes, values, and perceptions, and that personal/psychological education is taking place. 1987 M. Atwood Bluebeard's Egg 40 Sex was the hidden agenda at these discussions. 2001 N.Y. Times 13 May i. 20/4 There is no deviousness or hidden agenda.‥ What it is, is what it is.

Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary v4.7:

British National Corpus (BNC), Mark Davies (http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/): hidden agenda, 76 total

To have no secrets, no abnormal fears, no hidden agenda. To be like other people: gardening at the weekend, scent of freshly-mown grass, children playing on the lawn; wife in a cotton dress, long-legged, her smile sharing with him their private memories, future secured.

Veterans mostly of conferences and corporate operations where the good time masked a definite hidden agenda, they were steering him through the introductions deftly and with an impressive display of memory.

They angrily deny any such hidden agenda in their own ranks, insisting their campaign spans the religious divide and citing non-sectarian politics as the route to breaking down traditional divisions.

But union officials believe the moves are part of a hidden agenda which will change the face of health care in the region.

Prof Day questioned the "hidden agenda" of newspapers which suggested his report indicated the AIDS threat to heterosexuals was over

health unions expressed concern over what they feared could be a "hidden agenda" of merger plans

Mr Stephens said he was uncertain if he was being told the truth by the Government over any hidden agenda on privatisation.

France is not the only one of our European partners (for "partners", says Robertson, read "competitors") to have a hidden agenda for extracting nationalistic advantage from federalism.

Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), Mark Davies (http:// www.americancorpus.org/): hidden agenda, 163 total

But Adams says there may be a hidden agenda in parents' willingness to sacrifice for their kids.

Was there a hidden agenda to use Andrew Speaker's case to get more money for TB control?

McShane suspects a hidden agenda behind the growth in mainland islands.

"Bill is not a hidden agenda kind of guy," he said.

Like someone who thought his hidden agenda for refueling shuttles in space was, well, hidden.

The hidden agenda of my call was to hear if a serious "hard" scientist took these ideas seriously.

…be aware that many Web sites have a hidden agenda: selling products or proselytizing without providing hard evidence.

It is their grief and outrage over this, rather than some "neocolonialist" hidden agenda, that accounts for why so many of them have been mesmerized by the idea of humanitarian military intervention.

To unmask the hidden agenda of an official discourse now is not as grave a sin as it was before.

The American studies departments were set up by the Higher Education Council, which ostensibly was out to improve the universities, but had the hidden agenda of containing them.

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