Beyond the Pale

[Lillith_Fair]

What does “beyond the pale” mean?

[The_Mad_Hermit]

Here’s a definition I found by Google:

http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-pal2.htm

In particular, it was used to describe various defended enclosures of territory inside other countries.

The expression beyond the pale, meaning outside the bounds of acceptable behaviour, came much later. The idea behind it was that civilisation stopped at the boundary of the pale and beyond lay those who were not under civilised control and whose behaviour therefore was not that of gentlemen. A classic example appears 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 I’ve found is from Sir Walter Scott in 1819.

This link had more information than I had thought.

[inkleberry]

@Lillith Fair

What does “beyond the pale” mean?

AFAIK, it refers to the British pushing the people of Ireland out from the good areas to the “pale”- a nasty rocky area where they couldn’t grow anything. Anyway, that was pretty much a death sentance, and so the meaning of “beyond all hope” stems from that.

There also was a Russian pale, where Jews were also pushed into nasty areas of the country.

The term pale in this context refers not to color, but rather to a demarkation, post, barrier, etc. So “beyond the pale” also means beyond the line, beyond the boundary, etc. That’s where we get the “beyond the boundary of reasonable behavior” meaning from.

This entire post would’ve been more coherent if I didn’t have a fever right now…

[Dogface]

@inkleberry

AFAIK, it refers to the British pushing the people of Ireland out from the good areas to the “pale”- a nasty rocky area where they couldn’t grow anything.

Exactly the opposite of truth. If you actually read some Irish history, you will find that “The Pale” refers to the area under direct English rule through the 15th and 16th centuries. The Pale was, therefore, the civilized and “nice” area. It was often very small, simply being a bit of land around Dublin. “Beyond The Pale” would be the land of the wild men, of terror and violence.

[irishgirl]

Irish people still occasionally refer to Dublin and it’s environs as “the Pale”.

I think it’s from a lot further back than the British, the Vikings were centred in Dublin and didn’t really go further into the country, I have a feeling that they were the ones who erected the first pale around Dublin (the city is over 1000 years old, after all).