Preposition choice for the noun word 'secret'

Question

I run into this question.

We have no secrets _____ each other.

A. about B. between C. to D. from

My first response is B (between). After deep thought, I think C and D are more suitable. The answer shows D.

I'm kind of on the fence here. I'm wondering why D is the only answer.

IMHO, A, B and D do make sense, and might be used in colloquial speech. However, NGRAM shows from is far more frequently used with each. This is not a question with 100% correct answer, so one picks the best choice. — DrMoishe Pippik, Commented Feb 14 at 2:17
C can't be the answer because "secret to st" means "secret of getting that thing" like secret to success express"secret of getting success". — Sam, Commented Feb 14 at 5:53
If the question was "We keep no secrets .... each other" the answer would be more certainly "from". I think you, @dan, have enough in the comments now to write an answer. — James K, Commented Feb 14 at 7:25
@MichaelHarvey No, probably nobody says that. I'm fairly sure that you'd get marks for "from" in this test. I'm just saying that it might have been better to use "keep" instead of "have". — James K, Commented Feb 14 at 10:03

James Mathai · Accepted Answer · 2024-07-03 18:54:21Z

Prepositions - about/ between/ to/ from.

We have no secrets _____ each other.

A. about B. between C. to D. from My first response is B (between).
After deep thought, I think C and D are more suitable. The answer shows D.

The sentence has been modified so that we can check the use of each preposition.

We made no secrets about how we felt. ("about") cannot be used in the given sentence)
We have no secrets between us.("between" can also be used in the given sentence, but this sentence sounds better.)
We have no secrets to keep. ("to" cannot be used in the given sentence.)
We have no secrets from each other. ("from" is the perfect answer.)

Both C and D.are correct answers.

1 Answer 1