Former German President Christian Wulffwas charged on Friday with accepting a bribe in exchange for a political favor, a year after a broader corruption probeforced him to resign from the largely ceremonial post.

My comments:

A ceremonial post is a position (post) designed for ceremony.

Ceremony? Yeah, an occasion to celebrate or any other important event. Ostensibly important events, I shall say because ceremonies are mostly for show. There’s often little substantial business to solve and settle.

The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, for instance, is such an event - for competing athletes to be formally introduced.

And officials, of course.

Don’t forget the officials. The opening ceremony is as much, if not more, for the various officials – for them to be seen and heard.

The officials, whether they are relevant (as from sports governing bodies) or irrelevant (politicians in general), are there not to compete, but for the formalities.

A ceremonial post, therefore, is one that’s created for such formalities.

In other words, there’s no serious work involved.

Related stories:

The gloves are off?

Be on a winning streak

In teeth of

Cultural backwater

Gag gift

A worse version

Less is more

Survive the cut

Off the hook

Buy their way to influence

True to his root

Rise above the twittering crowd

As common as shelf paper in a cabinet

Out of the picture

Tampering with evidence

A single roll of the dice

Criss-cross

From strength to strength

Town Hall format

An Irish goodbye

In the wind

Try-angle

kicking up a fuss about

The coin of the realm

Toy with the idea of

Winner-take-all

Go with the moment

One throat to choke

Miss the boat

Shoe-in

Spotting and eliminating "pork"

All Greek to me

Have sth on the fire

Hard sell

Sold-out house

All bark and no bite

Leave money on the table

Boots on the ground

Jailbreak

Boots on the ground

Common thread

A fact of life

Leave no stone unturned

Train wreck

Keep up with Joneses

Finishing touch

No great shakes

Warts and all

Catch -22 situation

Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國家現行法律法規(guī)的內容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.