/ʁɑ̃vwaje o kalɑ̃d ɡʁɛk/ lit. ‘to put off to the Greek calends’
French idiom, literary. To keep putting something off instead of dealing with it.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use Renvoyer aux calendes grecques
?
A bit bookish but well known, and journalists love it for reforms and projects that keep slipping: “le projet a été renvoyé aux calendes grecques”. It’s often in the passive, and “remettre” works as well as “renvoyer”. It’s ironic: whatever is sent to the Greek calends is, in practice, never going to happen.
Also said remettre aux calendes grecques
Renvoyer aux calendes grecques
in real sentences
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Il l’a remis aux calendes grecques.
He postponed it to the Greek calends.
Tatoeba, sentence by sacredceltic, translation by Bernie75, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Renvoyer aux calendes grecques
come from?
The calends were Roman, not Greek: the first day of each Roman month, when debts fell due. The Greek calendar had no calends, so a Greek-calends date was a date that would never come. French Wiktionary credits the joke to the emperor Augustus, who according to Suetonius (Life of Augustus, 87) said bad debtors would pay “ad Kalendas Graecas”. The French phrase was in ordinary use by 1889, when Fortuné du Boisgobey used it in a novel.
Mistakes learners make with Renvoyer aux calendes grecques
Using it for a normal delay. Moving a meeting to next Tuesday isn’t “renvoyer aux calendes grecques”; the phrase means putting something off until a date that doesn’t exist.
Other French idioms like Renvoyer aux calendes grecques
Spot a mistake in Renvoyer aux calendes grecques
?
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