Meetings and committees

The thirty-fifth entry is reporter une décision, and the verb in it looks like an old acquaintance to an English reader and is nothing of the kind. Reporter means to move something to a later date. La réunion est reportée à jeudi is the meeting postponed to Thursday, le vote a été reporté is the vote put off, and the noun le report is the postponement itself, as in un report de deux semaines. None of it involves telling anybody anything. Read with English eyes, le conseil a reporté sa décision announces a board that has made its decision public, when it says the opposite: the board has not decided at all and will try again at the next sitting. The sense that English gave « report » — an account brought back to somebody — lives in French in other words, rendre compte for the verb and le rapport for the document, so le rapport du groupe de travail is what the working group hands in and le report is the delay before anyone reads it. In minutes, « defer », « postpone » and « put off » are all safe renderings; « report » never is.