Conversation:

I encountered the phrase in a business proposal, so it seems to me to have to do with finance. The business proposal however was written by Germans and as there were some other mistakes in ther I was not sure if they got the right term. Also, can you please advise me if thie term is ok for writing it in an official proposal or should another term be used? Can somebody help me there?

Maybe they meant "grace" period? No idea though what that means, but it would make more sense somehow

grace period doesn't sound as greasy as the other one

But it's not a common financial term, really?

So how do you call a period (of one or two years, I guess) when someone has to pay only reduced costs in order to make it easier for a start up business?

hmm... sorry, no idea, but I feel pretty sure about the grace thing. Since I'm German myself, I know how easy it is to make a mistake like that. And I am not aware of any sort of "oily" or "lubricated" period in German finance. Since Germans tend to use American English, maybe Grace period is an American term... I could imagine it describes just what you were saying... a period where preferential treatment is granted, a bit like a honeymoon period for politicians, when they just started office....

well ... it makes some kind of sense doesn't it, but it sounds just awful, grease period, I mean.

Isn't it funny that both grease period and grace period would imply about the same idea?

I suppose it is... although talking about life in general, I'd prefer grace to grease ... just beware of accepting any business proposal before you're sure what you are letting yourself into!

According to my Oxford English Dictionary, grace can mean 'favour shown by granting delay, e.g., give a day's or year's grace'. Following on from that, days of grace are 'time allowed by law for payment of bill of exchange or insurance premium after it falls due'. So a 'grace period' sounds a pretty good way of summing up what you're trying to describe.

thanks a lot .... I do agree it sounds a lot better than grease period .... but I could not guess from the text when I read it, I just had some kind of notion that it didn't really sound "right" .... and grease period made some kind of sense, too.

turbomaus ..... it is not for me to accept this proposal ... a friend of mine was involved in writing it, then forgot what it all means in German and asked me to translate it back (Männer!)

Sounds like a "typo"!

I would say it's supposed to be "grace period"!(yes, the above definitions are correct)

NM

I guess text could easily take on different meanings if you translate it and have it translated back by someone else... (double meanings etc...) I'm beginning to get curious about this proposal... what was it all about, if I may ask? And what's wrong with Maenner? I'm one of them...

spot on Dragon! That's just what I thought!

Maybe Helmut Kohl could help you. Because off his "Schmieren-Affaere"

well, I don't know the details of this proposal, I got only the 3 pages in questinon per fax, and I am quite happy about that .... Who knows what questions might arise from such a text. "Männer!" was just one of these silly chauvinistic remarks I just can't live without .... it just shows my affection for this tender gender

Hey .... and everybody knows Helmut doesn't speak a word of English .... there are times when he doesn't even understand German, it seems. But perhaps the whole Schmierenaffäre was just a misunderstanding and all he wanted to get was a loan on good conditions? Who knows?