Lexiconography: 'a date certain'

Your blogstress finds herself most charmed by the use of this term, with its French-like construction, and one with which she has heretofore been unfamiliar (the term, that is; not French construction, to which the bowing stays of her bustier will readily attest). These days in medialand, of course, "a date certain" refers to a provision in legislation making the rounds on Capitol Hill that calls for the "redeployment" of those U.S. troops now quagmired in Iraq, legislation that very well may pass both houses of Congress, only to be vanquished by the mighty presidential pen. [It's apparently a common legal term. As for your Webwench, she'll settle for un rendez-vous certain (et chaud) ce fin de semaine.]