"beyond the pale"

[Victor Steinbok]

I must say that the idea that "beyond the pale" may somehow be related
to the Pale of Settlement had occurred to me at one point (early in
college)--or, at least, some occasional uses of it, not all. But it also
occurred to me that the two are not directly related--the original
Russian term means little more than "a line" (or scratchmark) with no
additional meaning of something that cannot be crossed--that meaning is
derived from the regulation, not the phrase. So it would be puzzling if
the expression was derived from an English translation of something that
was pretty much irrelevant to anyone who spoke English. I'd go so far as
to say that OED's translation of "čerta [osedlosti]" as "boundary" is a
stretch, at best. The word is related to the words for "draught" and
"draughting" (as in "technical drawing") and is not related to the words
for "boundary" that I can recall. Obviously, some might disagree. But
the note in OED definition of "beyond the pale" specifically rejects the
notion that the two are related. I guess, this qualifies as
cherry-picking--I like one OED note, but not the other.

VS-)

On 12/31/2010 12:53 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> The sense I have in mind for "beyond the pale"
> that does not seem to be in the OED is something like:
>
> "the state, situation, condition, culture of Jews
> who escaped from (left) the Russian Pale of Settlement".
>
> That might be pale, n.1, sense 5 (fig) c. "beyond
> the pale (of): outside or beyond the bounds
> (of)".  However, that sense is combined with
> "beyond the pale: outside the limits of
> acceptable behaviour; unacceptable or
> improper."  And there are no quotations under 5.c
> that do not at least hint at disapproval, and
> certainly none for the phrase's use with
> reference to the Pale of Settlement -- and without disapproval.
>
> Joel
>
> At 12/30/2010 05:01 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>> Does the OED need a quotation for "beyond the
>> pale" that specifically connotes the Russian Pale
>> of Settlement?  The meaning there is "outside or
>> beyond the bounds (of)", not "outside the limits
>> of acceptable behaviour; unacceptable or
>> improper".  The only quotation (August 2010)
>> associated with the Jews is "1974    A. Goddard
>> Vienna Pursuit ii. 60   The Jews were shown to be
>> beyond the pale—untermenschen who had murdered
>> Christ.", which unfortunately does have the negative connotation.
>>
>> There are 13,600 raw GBooks hits for "beyond the
>> pale" + Jews, going back to perhaps the 1870s in
>> the context of the Russian pale.
>>       Perhaps this, from 1884: _The Jewish
>> question in Russia_, Pavel Pavlovich Demidov
>> (principe Di San Donato): "Lastly, frequently
>> expelled and driven from country to country and
>> treated as being beyond the pale of the law, the
>> Jews found that money served them as the only
>> means of salvation and enabled them to purchase
>> their right to existence. ...")
>>       Or this, from 1871:  _HISTORY OF THE WOROD
> >FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME_,
>> EVERT A. DUYCKINCK: "In 1850 an equally
>> oppressive ukase forbade altogether the practice
>> prevalent among Jewish women in Russia of cutting
>> ... of the Inquisition over them should cease,
>> and their position beyond the pale of civil society otherwise amended. ..."
>>
>> Joel

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