Industry’s Best Seller? Red Tape
News aggregators like Google News Alerts and Yahoo News are great for helping develop content for this blog. I have lots of alert words related to the adhesive-backed tape industry and get interesting news items every day.
Far and away, the leader in stories returned from these searches relate to “red tape“.
That got us wondering about the derivation of this term that has come to mean all things complicated by government processes, forms and general run around.
Earliest historical references are related to documents in the Vatican archives, where petitions by Henry VIII to the Pope were rolled and sealed with red tape. They can still be viewed today.
There are additional 18th century references in Dickens works and in Civil War veterans documents that were bound in red tape.
Modern references to red tape and “cutting” red tap are everywhere today, many relating to the budget debate going on in congress.
We sell lots of tape. Click here if you need red.
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