A newspaper article had a politician stating that something was “beyond the
pale”. I understood the phrase from just growing up here and hearing it now
and then – but then I got to thinking about it. Did I really understand the
phrase? What is a pale? Does something make you pale if it is beyond the
pale? Pail? Hum...
>From the interwebs:
From pale (“jurisdiction of an authority, territory under an authority's
jurisdiction”), suggesting that anything outside the authority's jurisdiction
was uncivilized. The phrase was in use by the mid-17th century, and may be a
reference to the general sense of boundary, but is often understood to refer
specifically to the English Pale in Ireland. In the nominally English territory
of Ireland, only the Pale fell genuinely under the authority of English law,
hence the terms within the pale and beyond the pale. The boundary of the
Ashdown Forest (a royal hunting forest) was also known as the Pale, consisting
of a paled fence and a ditch inside, to allow deer to jump in, but not back out.
Now, what about impale? And if you impale an impala in the pale did you break
a law?
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