Slang and Idioms 04: Red tape

Red tape is a term all French should be familiar with! This is a a very common idiomatic expression referring to official rules and procedures that seem unnecessary and only cause delays; in other words: bureaucracy! If you want to say that something is being delayed due to red tape, you'd say, "The budget approval for this project is tied up in red tape."

Usually around election time, politicians promise to reduce bureaucracy by saying that they will cut the red tape in government.

The origins of this term comes from history. As far back as the 16th century and continuing up to the 19th century, official documents were bound in red cloth tape. The difficulty of accessing this documents led to the current idiomatic expression.