To think that if you’re told a phrase is offensive, you don’t insist on using it?

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Yes, a TAAT. The context is that we explained to mumsnet HQ that the phrase ‘beyond the Pale’ is found eyebrow-raising by many (but not all) Irish people.

The Pale was the name given to an area of Ireland under English rule and those outside that area were considered uncivilised aka ‘beyond the pale’. This is a phrase that is only used with raised eyebrows in Ireland and certainly feels inappropriate, if not offensive, coming from an English person.

Mumsnet use it as part of their racism guidelines as in that they only ban language that is ‘beyond the pale’. Mumsnet accept the origins of the phrase. However, they insist on using this phrase to describe whether something is or is not racist.

Given the context, AIBU in requesting that Mumsnet find another phrase in their racism guidelines?

its disgraceful mumsnet have kept this racist comment up by wazznme

I had an email saying it had been removed?

Quote it perverse. Please.

You won’t be able to because I never said that.

My mistake, that was a different comment. Still no response from HQ on that one.

Wasn’t wazznme saying lots of us in England have limited knowledge of Irish history? I said that of myself ! How in earth is that racist?

no that was the entirety of her comment in reaction to my factual statement that England is not a country
i have a very good understanding of Irish history including Ireland's role in ww2 and the 'starvation order' and how Irish people that fought nazis hid their medals.

Good for you confusssed. If I didn’t understand the full
Context of that statement then apologies - I’ve not been following the whole turgid thread. I stand very firmly by my previous reply to pc which is that it is not and was not racist. That doesn’t change even in your context (which for the sake of this I can accept).

...just about all of using it in England have absolutely no idea in Irealnd/NI it has a different meaning.

Xenia, if you are using it in the sense of something completely abhorrent, unacceptable, or uncivilised, then you are using it correctly, and the meaning is not different from the meaning of the physical Pale that once existed in Ireland to separate the abhorrent, unacceptable and uncivilised from the English.

You along with many other English people may just be ignorant of the origins of the phrase and how the Irish and Irish culture were once - and in some quarters still are - held to be abhorrent, unacceptable and uncivilised, so you do not make the connection.

But it’s origin isn’t Irish!

Look up the etymology!

Sorry ‘its’.

You're wrong Ruffina, and so is your renowned etymologist.

No, I’m not. Read the link up the page.

A quote from the article you linked:

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 often the Irish one, but the earliest appearance of 1720 for beyond the pale is very late if it’s linked to the Irish one and much too early for the Russian one.

The earliest figurative sense that’s linked to the idiom was of a sphere of activity or interest, a branch of study or a body of knowledge, which comes from the same idea of an enclosed or contained area; we use field in much the same way. This turned up first in 1483 in one of the earliest printed books in English, The Golden Legende, a translation by William Caxton of a French work. This is a much later example:

By its conversion England was first brought, not only within the pale of the Christian Church, but within the pale of the general political society of Europe.

The History of the Norman Conquest, by Ernest A Freeman, 1867.

Our sense seems part to have grown out of this, since people who exist outside such a conceptual pale are not our kind and do not share our values, beliefs or customs.

This is absolutely in accord with the word arising from the Irish Pale. The etymologist seems to be in denial for some reason, about the brutal reality of the self concept of the conquerors and the concept they had of those not yet conquered, and he probably hasn't ever visited the remains of the original Pale, which are still visible today complete with the ruins of its associated fortifications.

www.historyireland.com/early-modern-history-1500-1700/the-english-palea-failed-entity/
The Pale and the concept of 'two nations' that is attempted to enforce and which it has signified ever since it was first erected.

...to be English conveyed certain rights and privileges as the king’s subjects (whether born in Ireland, Wales or England): in the Pale, discriminatory legislation against ‘the king’s Irish enemies’ was actively enforced. And given the frontier context—two nations, laws and cultures, and a pervading rhetoric of difference—the Palesmen were highly sensitive to their English identity, because to be English was to be free and civilised, whereas Irishness was synonymous with servitude and savagery. It is, in any case, a nonsense to talk about ‘Anglo-Irish subjects’: there was no such legal category. Second, during the later phase of Tudor expansion, English incomprehension of the refusal of that ‘stubborn, rude and most barbarous people’ to embrace the benefits of ‘English civility’ so magnanimously offered helps to explain the more brutal treatment of ‘the wild Irish’ that followed.

If the earliest reference to ‘beyond the pale’ is 1720, therefore very long after the establishment of the Irish Pale, and the other political pales, how does it accord?

The earlier references aren’t to ‘beyond the pale’ but merely ‘pale’ as demarcation in an abstract sense.

I’m happy to be wrong - genuinely - but I don’t see your point.

The point is that the function of The Pale coincides precisely with the meaning of the phrase. English speakers several hundred years ago understood that it denoted a hierarchy and a division - between those inside and the unspeakable and unwashed beyond.

The concept of superior English and inferior Irish took hold before the Pale was established - the fence gave physical expression to an idea that was already there. It was partly a military defensive line and partly a cultural defensive line. It was there to prevent attack and also the contamination of integration of the English culture and dilution of English legal theories and law by the Irish system. The superior/inferior concept was never entirely rooted out.

The etymologist demonstrates a lack of insight into the colonial mindset.

contamination of integration of the English culture
Should read "contamination of the English culture".

'The point is that the function of The Pale coincides precisely with the meaning of the phrase.'

This. Whether the phrase actually originated with the Irish Pale (which on balance it seems it did not) is not the point, and appears to me to be an argument that detracts from the point here.

I was looking at a language forum discussion about 'call a spade a spade'.The consensus was that the phrase originated and was in use long before the meaning of 'spade' as a racial slur emerged, but that it would be wise to avoid it because of the connotations it had gained. That seems a sensible approach to me and I cannot see why it shouldn't apply to 'beyond the pale'. Fionding alternatives to either of these phrases actually has the potential to enrich the language, not impoverish it.

It seems to me that the issue here is the potential for the phrase in question to be charged with derogatory meaning within a particular context/atmosphere of hostility. The complaint in this case was never just about 'beyond the pale'. It was about the use of the phrase in the context of a general sense - which many who don't think BTP is offensive have said they also notice - of anti-Irish sentiment on MN which MNHQ appears reluctant to address as robustly as it has language aimed at other groups (trans being an example).

Oh my. Are we saying we can't call a spade a spade now?
You see this is exactly the problem. There are way too many expressions now deemed to be offensive by some, which the vast majority of people haven't a clue about. It's just totally naive to expect people to avoid all these expressions.

Totally naive to expect people not to use racist phrases? Seriously?

When it comes to banning language and restricting free speech there are times it is appropriate and times when it isn't.

Banning or changing the title of the Agatha Christie's book "Ten little " was entirely appropriate because it was clearly offensive. However, when people want to change "Baa baa Black Sheep" to something less offensive (?) then the damage done by the discussion is not worth it.

The whole case becomes muddy because it is not clear why the language needs to change and even if the language needs to change.

In this case "throwing a paddy" is clearly and directly racist - the term used is a derogatory name. We all know it - stop using it.

However, "Beyond the Pale" is really not clear. When used in Ireland it might be linked to the Irish pale - although a lot of Irish posters do not object or put a different interpretation on it.

When used in the rest of the world it has other associations the Russian Pale or the Pale around the New Forrest. To expect the rest of the world (assuming MN is not just a U.K. site) to change because of one interpretation of one meaning is extreme and will do more harm than good.

But they're not racist. They have been mistakenly believed to have racist origins even though they don't.

The phrase beyond the Pale in Northern Ireland has racist connotations.

And that is nothing to do with the etymology of the phrase or where it comes from historically. Today. This week. Last week. That phrase is used in a racist way in one part of the United Kingdom and as such has no place in the talk guidelines of mumsnet, in my opinion.

It is part of normal English used by people who associate it with the Russian Pale - until this thread I never knew the irish had an issue withi t. We cannot adapt to all the nations of the earth. Trade Marks are sometimes changed in some countries as they offend - eg Bums -perfectly okay in one language, not that great a product name in the UK so they use a different one. Mumsnet is a UK website. It is not an Irish, French, US, German website.

in British English most people say beyond the pale meaning - something is unacceptable and are using it with the non irish origin meaning. Mumsnet have thankfully gone with the sensible view that saying something is beyond the Pale is perfectly okay. If you set up a website in Dublin then you might well choose to have different views on it although I would still support free speech.

Xenia so you would chose to continue to use a phrase on here that you know offends a number of mumsnetters?

Personally, I wouldn't do that. I would use a different word, especially in the talk guidelines.

Totally naive to expect people not to use racist phrases

I'm hopIng it's more you are being deliberately obtuse rather than you can't grasp the concept of the discussion?

To explain, in case it's the latter, everyone agrees no one should use a racist phrase. The discussion is people do not believe or agree this is actually a racist phrase. And the overwhelming majority of people who use it, do not do so with racist intent. For them, they either don't know the origins, or if they do, understand a pale is a fence round a settlement, and they predate the Irish one.

So if we used today's parlance, then the phrase would be outside the fence. And although there was a pale in relation to the Irish, there were also hundreds, if not thousands, more centuries ago, all across the world. There was not just one pale.

There is no documented historical evidence that the pale referred to in this centuries old phrase was created simply and only due to thr Irish. None. Neither is it a phrase most people associate with the Irish, and nor do they use it with racist intent, becayse they are unaware of, or don't agree, the association.

Bluntness. The phrase is used, in Northern Ireland, today, with racist connotations. Nothing to do with history. But today.

Why would you continue to use a phrase that has been appropriated in that way?