Beyond the pale

[Reppin]

Can we all stop using this expression now?

Yes Francis I do know all that...And the 'glorious revolution' & everything - 17th century is my specialist subject :)
I was precising... & counting Mary & Anne as Stuarts...

James VI of Scotland thus became James 1st of England & the first Stuart king

Who the hell doesn’t think racism isn’t an issue? No one posted that. But you cannot take a general term like a pale or a wall or anything of that ilk and decide its racist.

I can. I'm very offended by mention of shoes, being descended from serfs, so I'm on the look out for all shoe-related phrases and quite prepared to sue.

I can't believe there are 6 pages of 'discussion' about the word Pale, from palings or palisades - you've seen Time Team dig them up, surely!

Nothing to do with the Irish, except that at one moment in time there was an English Pale and it was in Ireland! Lots of other countries have the equivalent.... ironage man did too! As did the Greeks, Romans, Macedonians etc. And it would be unthinkable to assume they didn't have an equivalent saying... about being left outside or being from beyond the safety of the fence!

But that sort of logic wouldn't have caused any kind of ripple, would it?

Had Spandau Ballet had a bit more of ABCs Lexicon they might have sung about Through the Pallisades!!

bananas snap with my family. And we use the term very often ourselves.

I have quite literally never heard of it used in another context until I read it on MN.

I can. I'm very offended by mention of shoes, being descended from serfs, so I'm on the look out for all shoe-related phrases and quite prepared to sue

Well that’s fair.

It absolutely does refer to Ireland and is from the 14th century. All other uses came after that. it is not a Jewish reference or anywhere else, you're thinking of the Pale of Settlement which is centuries later.

Both originated from pale in the sense of a fence, pale origninally meaning the same as pole. This then became the term for a specific area within a fence or boundary, and so on.

So its meaning is "out of bounds".

Well that’s fair. grin

I thought so blunt

It means literally "outside the bounds of " but refers now to taste and behaviour rather than geography.

Yes curry we know Do you consider it problematic?

You appeared to be asking. As I said earlier, no, it is not even slightly problematic.

This threads beyond the polar, wouldn’t you think?
Suggesting everyone stops using a turn of phrase because it doesn’t suit you!

The thing is there is some really serious things to fight and take offence against.

Racism, sexism, homelessness, child poverty, war, to hang your hat on something like this simoly under mines the real fight sgainst racism.

I really wish people would not take things so far they move into ludicrous. It damages the real fight against these issues when you get all silly about it.

A pale is simply something that existed hundreds of years ago in many contexts in many countries, to try to claim one example of it as the only example then claim racism is dismaying to say the least.

To coin a phrase, it’s beyond the pale.

ok guys
I can't speak for all Irish people but here's a handy guide about what gets up our noses (top tip: it isn't saying 'beyond the pale')

1. Not understanding why we Irish have a tendency to act (rightly or wrongly) as though Britain 'owes' us because of, erm, 'history'. To be fair most of us aren't really this simplistic unless you really wind us up.

2. Brexit

3. People sayin we shouldn't 'interfere' in Brexit. We tend to think the British did quite a bit of 'interfering' chez nous over the last 800 years. We are mainly 'over' all that until something like Brexit rears its ugly head. or until Irish film stars/ sports stars suddenly described as "British" as soon as they achieve anything.

4. We forget all the insightful scholarship on Irish history and politics that have been produced in England and by the British as soon as some ignoramus starts sounding off. And we don't let the fact we are capable of talking bllx on every conceivable topic put us off.

we don't generally attribute any of the above to racism ime - that would be beyond the pale. innit.

@AreThereAnyUsersnamesLeft I'm not sure how much you know about how most British people feel about brexit

Who are 'most people'?

'Most British people' even?

not sure how much you know about how most British people feel about brexit

About half and half I'd say.

I have ' palins ' round my garden front and back, attached to the pales is sarkin onto which boards are attached to make my fences. My boundary to keep my family in and others out. A tiny version of long lost settlements that had massive pales, as a previous op said, which surrounded our ancestors homes to keep them safe and enemies and wild animals out.