DYK: That is beyond the pale! – this is the true meaning

Beyond the pale means unacceptable; outside agreed standards of decency.

The pale has nothing to do with whitish color it was the area around Dublin in Ireland.mapbeyondthepale

The everyday use of the word ‘pale’ is as an adjective meaning whitish and light in colour (used to that effect by Procol Harum and in countless paint adverts). This ‘pale’ is the noun meaning ‘a stake or pointed piece of wood’, a meaning now virtually obsolete except as used in this phrase, but still in use in the associated words ‘paling’ (as in paling fence) and ‘impale’ (as in Dracula movies).

The paling fence is significant as the term ‘pale’ came to mean the area enclosed by such a fence and later just figuratively ‘the area that is enclosed and safe’. So to be ‘beyond the pale’ was to be outside the area accepted as ‘home’. Until the 1500s, that area was subject to British law. “Those who lived beyond the pale were outside English jurisdiction and were thought to be uncivilized.
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