Beyond the paIe - a common phrase?
- Thread starter Jace
- Start date
Paco Dennis
SF VIP
- Location
- Mid-Missouri
Pale person
"Beyond the pale" person
"Beyond the pale" person
horseless carriage
Well-known Member
To be 'beyond the pale' is to be unacceptable; outside agreed standards of decency.
However, there is another meaning of 'pale' - 'a stake or pointed piece of wood'.
This meaning is now virtually obsolete except as used in this phrase. A variant of it - 'paling', is still in use, as in paling fence and 'impale' (as in Dracula movies).
However, there is another meaning of 'pale' - 'a stake or pointed piece of wood'.
This meaning is now virtually obsolete except as used in this phrase. A variant of it - 'paling', is still in use, as in paling fence and 'impale' (as in Dracula movies).
OneEyedDiva
SF VIP
- Location
- New Jersey
OMG that sounds horrible!!yes you're right lol... we had to be verrrry careful.... My uncle when he was a kid climbed over the palings and one paling went straight through his shin, he was left hanging on the fence for hours before they could pry him off...but kids are kids and we had no fear then
Tish
SF VIP
- Location
- Rural N.S.W. Australia
Get on with it.
OneEyedDiva
SF VIP
- Location
- New Jersey
I finally actually heard the term "beyond the pale" used in the Netflix show Bridgerton, about society's elites and royals.
Bellbird
-Oceania-South Pacific
- Location
- New Zealand
I have used the expression 'beyond the pale' for years, I still do.
Alligatorob
SF VIP
I must have read a few hundred gothic novels and Regency romances in my life, so I have encountered the phrase quite often, the smallest infraction like going out with no hat or gloves, might set one beyond the pale.
One of my favorite lines using it was in, "The French Lieutenant's Woman."
Sarah says: "I knew it was ordained that I should never marry an equal; so, I married shame. It is my shame that has kept me alive - my knowing that I am truly not like other women. I - I shall never, like them, have - children and a husband, and the pleasures of a home. Sometimes I pity them. I have a freedom they cannot understand. No insult, no blame, can touch me. I have set myself beyond the pale. I am nothing. I am hardly human any more. I am the French lieutenant's - whore!
One of my favorite lines using it was in, "The French Lieutenant's Woman."
Sarah says: "I knew it was ordained that I should never marry an equal; so, I married shame. It is my shame that has kept me alive - my knowing that I am truly not like other women. I - I shall never, like them, have - children and a husband, and the pleasures of a home. Sometimes I pity them. I have a freedom they cannot understand. No insult, no blame, can touch me. I have set myself beyond the pale. I am nothing. I am hardly human any more. I am the French lieutenant's - whore!