pail / pale

[Victor Steinbok]

Perhaps Palin had something to do with it

     VS-)

On 8/22/2012 1:32 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
> This looks like a blend to me: "over the top" + "beyond the pale"
>
> Gerald Cohen
> ________________________________________
> 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

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org