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by selwoot 810 days ago
That's the exact opposite of what the link you included says.

From https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/12/beyond-the-pale.h...

As for the relationship between the two expressions, the OED has this to say:

“The theory that the origin of the phrase [‘beyond the pale’] relates to any of several specific regions, such as the area of Ireland formerly called the Pale … or the Pale of Settlement in Russia … is not supported by the early historical evidence and is likely to be a later rationalization.”

2 comments

Also from the article: a “pale” is a fence. “Beyond the pale” used to require a suffix (e.g., “beyond the pale of reason”) but eventually by itself started to be short for “beyond the pale of acceptable behavior”.
And what were those fences specifically used for pray tell.
Metaphorical boundaries of things like reason and acceptable behavior. “Beyond the pale” means outside the fence. Being “beyond the Pale of Settlement” (that is, outside the ghetto) would be a good thing.
You have successfully repeated the opinion of the Oxford English Dictionary after reading an entire article about how the British used Pales to colonize areas and define boundaries, but I'm not sure it's as cut and dry as you want it to be.
Dude it was your source. Take the L and don't cite sources you haven't read going forward.
Please don't make personal attacks like that on this forum, it's against the rules.

So is claiming someone didn't read a source when you disagree with their interpretation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm saying you didn't read the source because you cited a source and it clearly contradicted what you said.

I don't know why you're still typing, you're not convincing anybody, you're not getting any karma, and nobody is gonna respect you more for refusing to acknowledge how blatantly wrong you are. The best you can do here is admit (to yourself) you screwed up and that you have a lot of trouble admitting when you're wrong, and then working on that character flaw -- your life will go a lot smoother.