pail / pale

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

This looks like a blend to me: "over the top" + "beyond the pale"

Gerald Cohen
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Joel S. Berson wrote:


At 8/22/2012 12:27 PM, Charles C Doyle wrote:
>When Congresman Ryan was quoted on the ABC website as saying that
>Cogressman Akin's comments were "over the pail," we should probably
>assume that the confusion of "pail" and "pale" was the mistake of
>the quoter, not the speaker?  Perhaps because Ryan said "over the
>pale" instead of the more common "beyond the pale"?

Maybe Ryan was thinking of Jack and Jill?  (What might the satirists
here make of that?)

Joel

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