Dunno whether this is best suited for GQ or Cafe Society. Can anyone think of a well-known nursery rhyme or fairy tale that involved a character who couldn’t keep a secret?
Rumpelstiltskin. If he’d kept his damn mouth shut he wouldn’t have been overheard chanting his name.
The story of the goose that laid the golden eggs. I don’t know if they tried to keep it a secret, but, given how it turned out, the certainly should have…
For some reason I keep hearing Rumplestiltskin. Is that really a common enough referent that someone would know that Rumplestiltskin is a guy who can’t keep secrets?
(For some context, this is likely to go in a judicial opinion. We want to say something to the effect of, "The plaintiff argues that the defendant is [a character who can’t keep a secret], when in fact the defendant is allegedly merely [a character who can’t tell the truth].)
Well, I don’t know that you’d want to characterize the defendant as a cranky old gnome who enslaves women…
Exactly my problem. 
Is there a character for whom the first (or one of the first) association that springs to mind is, “can’t keep a secret”?
What about Bluebeard’s wife? She sure as hell can’t resist a secret, don’t think she can keep one either. And for that matter, what about Blue beard? “There’s that big spooky door, just ignore it, never look into it.”
WHo do you have picked out for the character who can’t tell the truth? Pinocchio?
Yeah. …Is there some sort of Disney character that couldn’t keep a secret? 'Cause that’d be swell.
Anaamika: Bluebeard doesn’t conjure that up for me. Actually, I’m not sure what Bluebeard conjures up for me. A beard, I guess. Blue in color.
I just meant he has this great big secret, but he wants someone to find out about, leaving this big giant door in plain sight, and telling everyone, “No one look”. If he’d just entitled it something mundane, like “Broom Closet”, well then, it might have stayed hidden.
I have to admit, Otto’s response came to me almost as a Pavlovian reflex when I saw the thread title. I’m not sure it would work in reverse, though–the association I have when I see Rumpelstiltskin is “couldn’t keep his mouth shut”, not “couldn’t keep a secret”. A difference in emphasis–which might be enough to derail the analogy.
Midas’ barber was famous for not being able to keep a secret. Not sure how well known that myth is though.
Hrm. Maybe I’ll suggest to the Judge that he use Rumplestiltskin, but put some context in there.