The meaning and origin of the expression: Spill the beans. Spill the beans. more like this... Meaning. To divulge a secret, especially to do so inadvertently or maliciously. Origin. The derivation of this expression is sometimes said to be a voting system used in ancient Greece. The story goes that white beans indicated positive votes and black beans negative.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership and various pro-Palestinian groups have hailed the vote as a symbolic victory for the Palestinians. The Palestinian representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said that the vote regarding the flag would be another step towards solidifying Palestinian statehood.
In most countries, universal suffrage (the right to vote but not necessarily the right to be a candidate) followed about a generation after universal male suffrage. Notable exceptions in Europe were France, where women could not vote until 1944, Greece (1952), and Switzerland (1971 in federal elections and 1990 in all cantonal elections).