'BEYOND THE PALE' - What does it mean?

World Wide Words ^ | Michael Quinion

[Alex Murphy]

[Q] From Jon Pearce: Any idea where beyond the pail comes from and what it means?

[A] That’s a common misspelling these days because the word that really belongs in the expression has gone out of use except in this one situation. The expression is properly beyond the pale. It means an action that is regarded as outside the limits of acceptable behaviour, which is unacceptable or improper. A classic example is in The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, dated 1837: “I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct”. The earliest example known is from A Compleat History of Rogues of 1720.

That word pale has nothing to do with the adjective for something light in colour except that both come from Latin roots. The one referring to colour is from the Latin verb pallere, to be pale, whilst our one is from palus, a stake.

A pale is an old name for a pointed stake driven into the ground and — by an obvious-enough extension — to a barrier made of such stakes, a fence (our modern word pole is from the same source, as are impale and paling). This meaning has been around in English since the fourteenth century. By 1400 it had taken on various figurative senses — a defence, a safeguard, a barrier, an enclosure, or a limit beyond which it was not permissible to go. The idea of an enclosed area still exists in some English dialects.

In particular, the term was used to describe various defended enclosures of territory inside other countries. For example, the English pale in France in the fourteenth century was the territory of Calais, the last English possession in that country. The best-known modern example is the Russian Pale, between 1791 and the Revolution of 1917, which were specified provinces and districts within which Russian Jews were required to live. Another famous one is the Pale in Ireland, that part of the country over which England had direct jurisdiction — it varied from time to time, but was an area of several counties centred on Dublin. The first mention of the Irish Pale is in a document of 1446–7. Though there was an attempt later in the century to enclose the Pale by a bank and ditch (which was never completed), there never was a literal fence around it.

The expression has often been claimed to originate in one or other of these pales, most commonly the Irish one. However, the first example known to the Oxford English Dictionary is in a work by Sir John Harington, The History of Polindor and Flostella, written sometime before 1612 but published in 1657: “Both Dove-like roved forth beyond the pale / To planted Myrtle-walk.” This is rather late if the Irish Pale were the source. Moreover, this example used the word in the literal sense of a boundary or enclosure, not the modern figurative one, so that there’s no conceptual link either.

The earliest relevant figurative sense was of a sphere of activity or interest, a branch of study or a body of knowledge; we use field in much the same way. This first appeared in 1483 in one of the earliest printed books in English, The Golden Legende, a translation by William Caxton of a French work.

Our figurative sense seems in part to have grown out of this, since those who exist outside such a conceptual pale are not of our kind and do not share our values, beliefs or social customs. There may well have been an echo of a literal pale as well, with an implication that civilisation stopped at its boundary.

[Alex Murphy]

The expression is properly beyond the pale. It means an action that is regarded as outside the limits of acceptable behaviour, which is unacceptable or improper. A classic example is in The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, dated 1837: “I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct”. The earliest example known is from A Compleat History of Rogues of 1720.

Thread posted in response to this comment made earlier today on another thread...

...“beyond the pale” is a direct anti-Catholic referrence....

My own familiarity with the phrase began with this Kerry Livgren-penned song, which is why I took it to be religious (but not anti-Catholic):

BEYOND THE PALE
Words and music by Michael Gleason and Kerry Livgren
from the Kerry Livgren/AD album Timeline (1983)

Beginning again, as if for the first time
New melodies, a changing of season

I want you to know me
but not as I've been

(Chorus)
Remember me, not as you see
As I will be, not as I am
Beyond the pale, no fairy tale
The lion lies down with the lamb

I look in your eyes, a great gulf between us
I'll be your friend, but never keep silent

I want you to know me,
But not as I've been

(Chorus)

(Bridge)
Sharing the love that I've found
Give it a chance to turn our lives around
As I've received I'm willing to give

(Chorus)

Related thread:
Party song seen as having anti-Catholic overtones [The "Hokey-Pokey" - that's what it's all about!]

[Lorianne]

Thanks, this website is a good reference!

[RegulatorCountry]

An Pháil, beyond the Pale of Settlement, in Ireland, referring to the areas outside of English control.

[cornelis]

Beyond the Pale

More here.

[autumnraine]

“’BEYOND THE PALE’ - What does it mean?”

It means Sean Hannity is on again. And I’ll have to hear it 14 times before I change the channel.

[conservativeharleyguy]

"...Thanks, this website is a good reference!..."

It's great. I finally found the term for my disorder: Ergophobia.

I'm finally on the road to recovery. Just as soon as I get back to work.

[I Buried My Guns]

The phrase I learned (and almost forgotten) was “beyond the pale of settlement”, which meant beyond the area that the czarina invited German families to settle in western Russia.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Yeppers.

The Pale

[blackminorca]

Another derivation explains the concentration of Jews in Ukraine and Poland - they were thrown out of Russia by the Tsar.

“When pales or palings are put together they are used to form a fence, or an enclosure. But this saying comes from what is known as “The Jewish Pale of Settlement” which was coined by the Russian Czar - Nicholas I, and meant that Russian Jews were confined to live in a specific area...

In reality this area incorporated Poland and the Ukraine. Laws were first passed in 1795, then in 1835 Nicholas I enforced them, so that by 1897, it is estimated that there were more than 5 million Jews living within the Pale. But around that time, the Pogroms developed – another anti-Semitic action, which aimed to drive the Jews “Beyond the Pale”... So the irony is that, first they forced the Jews to live within the Pale, and then they forced them beyond the Pale.”

It also explains why the Kremlin has been fond of stirring trouble between Jews and Poles and Ukrainians - to deflect attention away from the genocide of the Kremlin. Thus, Russophiles blame the Holodomor on the Jews, they forge papers to accuse Demjanjuk of killing Jews, and they come up with Operation Vistula and Katyn to divide Poles and Ukrainians.

http://www.iwp.edu/news/newsID.139/news_detail.asp