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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center">=====================================================<br>
<b>L O W L A N D S - L - 04 August 2010 - Volume 03</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center"><a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="FR">lowlands.list@gmail.com</span></a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="FR">http://lowlands-l.net/</span></a><br>
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<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">From: <span class="gd"><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Jacqueline Bungenberg de
Jong</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:Dutchmatters@comcast.net">Dutchmatters@comcast.net</a>></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;" lang="FR"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gi">Etymology; beyond, beyond the pale</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;" lang="FR"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Dear all, This appeared in my
mailbox this morning. It is a good thing; (yes Martha)! </span></p>
<p style="font-family: times new roman,serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Warmest summer greetings.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125); font-family: times new roman,serif;">Jacqueline BdJ Seattle WA</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 10pt 0in 1.8pt; line-height: 16.8pt; font-family: georgia,serif;"><a href="http://podictionary.com/?p=243" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">pale – podictionary 240</span></b></a> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 1.8pt; line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: rgb(85, 85, 85);">Posted: 03 Aug 2010 09:01 PM PDT</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: black;">From
April 30, 2006…</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: black;">I
find in the Oxford English Dictionary that there are ten words pale spelled <em>pale</em>. None of them are a bucket,
which would be spelled <em>pail</em>.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: black;">One
at least is short for pale ale, so that’s okay, but I want to talk about the
one that’s behind the phrase “beyond the pale.”</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: black;">Five
of the ten are nouns so that “pale” a noun meaning a lack of pallor is
obviously only subtly different from “pale” the verb to lose ones pallor, or
“pale” the adjective. But none of these are related to “beyond the pale”
which means something that is improper or as the OED defines it</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: black;">“outside
the limits of acceptable behavior”</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: black;">Here’s
the story: more than 2000 years ago Roman soldiers were like modern soldiers in
that they needed to train against enemies to prepare for war. Before
going into any battles at all they used to take a wooden stick and plant it in
the ground, standing up, and pretend it was the enemy they had to fight.
This stick was called in Latin a <em>p?lus</em>
and according to the American Heritage Dictionary it comes from an
Indo-European root meaning to fasten.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: black;">A
whole row of sticks stuck in the ground was a palisade and we still use that
word for the kind of rudimentary protective walls built around early European
settlements in North America.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: black;">But
the word for a stick in the ground alone came to English through French and
appeared not as p?lus but as “pale” about 600 years ago. Over time, and
perhaps even before, a pale was not just a stick, but a fence, and then it was
the area within the fence.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: black;">By
about the time of Shakespeare’s birth, just over 400 years ago a pale was an
area which was under your control, and specifically the areas of Ireland that
were under English control were called the pale.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: black;">There
were other areas of the world as well called the pale; the OED mentions Calais in northern France. So things that went
on “beyond the pale” were things out of control so that by 1658 it was being
used metaphorically to mean out of control and by implication unacceptable.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%; font-family: georgia,serif;"><span style="color: black;">This
word “pale” is also where we get our word “impale” that is, to poke a stick
through. For the sake of completeness, the word “pale” meaning the color in our
faces also comes from Latin through French, but it’s root is instead pallidum.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 140%;"><span style="font-family: georgia,serif; color: black;">This
posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: <a href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/podictionary/pale_podictionary_240.mp3" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Download Now</span></b></a> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
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