Posted by Gary on January 23, 2003
In Reply to: Re: Beyond the Pale posted by R. Berg on January 23, 2003
: : In one of your recent discussions of "trailer trash," the phrase "beyond the pale" was used. Can anyone say from whence it came?
: : "life is too uncertain to waste on quests of vane fortune when the language is the windmill which beckons tilting..."
: Would those vanes be the ones at the top of the windmill?
: "Beyond the pale" means, roughly,
outside the picket fence, a pale being a stake. See discussion at the Word Detective's
site, http://www.word-detective.com/back-q.html#pale
: (link below).
or