Beyond the Pale

Today on Grammar Girl, we’re doing something new. We’re giving you a quiz.

It’s about the phrase beyond the pale. 

You may know that beyond the pale describes something outside the limits of acceptable behavior.

For example, wearing a see-through dress to a wedding might be beyond the pale. Or tossing your used coffee cup onto the sidewalk. Both behaviors are outside the bounds of morality and plain ol’ good judgement.

Here’s the quiz. Do you think beyond the pale has to do with color? Perhaps it alludes to increasingly pale shades of morality … or mysterious activities that occur after the setting of a pale moon? 

Or do you think it has to do with sticks?

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Believe it or not, the second option is correct. Beyond the pale has to do with sticks. You see, the word pale is derived from the Middle French word pal and the Latin word pālus, and both refer to a wooden stake. It’s where the pale part of impale comes from. When you impale that vampire, you’re doing it with a wooden stake.

And wooden stakes also give us the phrase beyond the pale because in that case, a pale refers to a space enclosed by stakes.

There was an English pale in Ireland, for example. When Henry II of England sailed into Ireland in 1171, his armies established a pale — a district ruled by English law and English barons. “In the great districts beyond the Pale,” an Irish historian describes, “the native Celtic language of the country continued to be spoken, the old customs or Behon laws were followed; while the chiefs or petty kings succeeded according to their ancient regulations of descent.” 

From a British perspective, therefore, within the pale lay civilization; beyond lay savagery. 

Other historical pales include the Pale Settlement of Russia set up by Catherine the Great, which required Jews in Russia and parts of Poland to live within certain boundaries, and the Pale of Calais, which is what the French region around the city of Calais was called when it was under English control.

The Oxford English Dictionary actually says that evidence doesn’t tie the phrase beyond the pale to any of these real-life pales—that attempts to do so are later rationalizations. But the phrase does get its meaning from the ideas related to the British pale in Ireland. Inside the pale is safe; beyond the pale is where you’ve passed the boundaries of civility.

So, that’s your tidbit for today. Beyond the pale means improper or outside the bounds of acceptable behavior.

Samantha Enslen runs Dragonfly Editorial. You can find her at dragonflyeditorial.com or @DragonflyEdit.

Sources

Ammer, Christine. Beyond the Pale. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, 2nd ed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. 

Ayto, John. Pale. Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 2010.

Encyclopedia Britannica, online edition. Britannica. Pale (subscription required, accessed September 13, 2016).

O’Connell, Daniel. Ireland and O'Connell: A Historical Sketch of the Condition of the Irish People. William Tate, Edinburgh, 1835.

Oxford English Dictionary, online edition. Oxford University Press. Pale (subscription required, accessed September 13, 2016).

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