US pension documents bound with red tape. A sheaf of papers, folded, and tied with red cloth ribbon. The top document is dated 1 October 1904.
22 September 2021
Red tape is the mindless adherence to bureaucratic rules and niceties that, to outsiders at least, seem pointless and time-wasting. The term comes from the red, cloth tape that was once used to bind stacks of papers in offices. A note in the 11 May 1861 issue of Notes and Queries discusses the origin of the practice in Britain:
Red tape appears to be used exclusively in the public offices of this country, and is probably of no great antiquity. It may have been originally imported from Holland, but there is no reason for connecting it to William III. Tape was a convenient and cheap material for tying up loose papers; and as white tape soon became dirty, coloured tape was preferred. Why the colour red was preferred for tape, as for sealing-wax and wafers, depended on some accident which is not easy to trace. On occasions of public mourning, black tape is sometimes served out in the government offices.
That same article in Notes and Queries includes a transcription of the earliest known appearance of the term, used in its literal sense, from 1658:
From the following advertisement in the Public Intelligencer for Dec. 6th, 1658 (No. 153), it would appear that red tape was used by London lawyers two centuries ago:—
“A little bundle of Papers tied with a red Tape, were lost on Friday last was a seven night, between Worcester-house and Lincolns-Inn. Also a Paper-Book bound in Leather and blue coloured Leafs. If any one who hath found them, will bring or send them to Mr. Graves his Chamber in Lincoln’s Inn, they shall receive satisfaction for their pains.”
It would seem that stacks of papers bound with red tape had a penchant for being lost on public transport, for this advertisement appeared in the Protestant (Domestick) Intelligence for 22 March 1681:
A Pocket Book bound in Vellom, tied about with a piece of red Tape, was lost on Wednesday night last, about the hour of Nine, between Fleet-Bridge and East-Cheap, with sev ral [sic] Bills of Parcels of Linnen, and Bone-Lace, and Receipts for fever2l [sic] Sums of Money; the Receipts are made to one Hugh Anderson. Whoever hath taken up this Pocket Book, they are Desired to bring or send it to the Publisher of this Intelligence, or to John Damm’s Coffee-House in the Mint in Southwark, and the Bearer shall have 5 s. reward.
And we get a reference to government documents bound with red tape being lost on public transport in the London Gazette of 13–17 December 1694:
Dropt the 23d past, between Tooteing and Clapham, in the County of Surry, 3 Exchequer Orders in parchment, tied up with red Tape, for payment of the Interest of 300 l. unto John Coldham of Tooteing aforesaid. Whoever brings the said Orders to Mr. Smith, Goldsmith, at the Grasshopper in Lombard-street, or to the said Mr. Coldham at his House in Tooteing, shall have a Guinea reward.
Red tape, the literal kind, appears in the Americas by 1 July 1696 with the passage of this this law governing how records of the boundaries of public land in Annapolis in the colony of Maryland were to be kept:
And for the Ascertaining of the Bounds and Limits of the said Town-Pasture and Common, and the several Lots and Dividends in the same contained; be it Enacted by the Authority aforesaid, by and with the Advice and Consent of the aforesaid, That the Dimensions, Bounds and Courses thereof, shall at all Times hereafter, be adjudged, held, taken and reputed, according to the Map and Platt thereof, being drawn up and presented by Richard Beard, Gent. by Order and Directions of his Excellency, carefully Examined, and Sealed with the Great Seal of the Province at the Fore Side thereof, and upon the Back Side thereof seal’d with his Excellency’s Seal at Arms, on a Red Cross with Red Tape, and remaining in the Secretary’s Office, or to be hung up in the Court-House.
Figurative use of red tape to mean adherence to bureaucratic rules is in place by 1736, when John Hervey includes the following passage in his satirical Poetical Epistle to the Queen on Her Commanding Lord Hervey to Write No More:
What others dictate, let great statesmen write,
And we Gold Keys learn all to read at sight:
Let Wilmington, with grave, contracted brow,
Red tape and wisdom at the Council show,
Sleep in the senate, in the circle bow.
Sources:
“An Act for Keeping Good Rules and Orders in the Port of Annapolis” (1 July 1696). Compleat Collection of the Laws of Maryland. Annapolis: William Parks, 1727, 14. LLMC Digital.
“Advertisement.” Protestant (Domestick) Intelligence (London), 22 March 1681, 2. Gale Primary Sources: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Nichols Newspapers Collection.
Hervey, John. “Poetical Epistle to the Queen on Her Commanding Lord Hervey to Write No More” (1736). Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second, vol. 2 of 2. John Wilson Croker, ed. London: John Murray, 1848, 156. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
“Multiple Advertisements.” London Gazette, 13–17 December 1694, 2. Gale Primary Sources: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Nichols Newspapers Collection.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2009, modified March 2019, s.v. red tape, n.
“Red Tape.” Notes and Queries (London), 11.280, 11 May 1861, 375–76. Gale Primary Sources: American Historical Periodicals
Tréguer, Pascal. “Origin of ‘Red Tape’ (Obstructive Official Rules).” Wordhistories.net, 1 January 2018.
Photo credit: Jarek Tuszyński, 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.