Beyond The Pale? A palus was what the Romans called a sharpened piece of wood. They’d stick them around their camps to form a barrier against the bad guys.
Palus evolved to things like pole and pale. English troops called their protective barriers in unfriendly lands like Ireland and France and such pales.
When one went beyond the pale one went to places where order was not maintained and the unexpected was expected.
And now you know from whence comes the phrase.
I have read elsewhere that the term originally meant a border fence, perhaps a palisade. Same idea–outside, there is no rule of law because you’re out of its reach.
Yes, but “palisade” also comes from “palus”, as a word for a fence or wall made up of poles. “palus” is the original, root word.
In the old Tsarist empire, “the Pale” referred to both that part of Poland that the Russians occupied, and to the area in the East, in Poland, White Russia, and the Ukraine, where Jews were settled, as in, “the Pale of Jewish Settlement”, as they sometimes said.
Nice to know. Interesting, I knew the saying but not how it came about.