It's from an earlier meaning of the word pale, which meant a specific region or area within a defined boundary. Hence the denotation of beyond the pale is "outside the boundary." Another current use of the word's earlier meaning is the phrase "The Pale of Settlement," which meant and to historians still means a bounded region in Russia into which Russian Jews were herded and allowed to live, more or less, during the generation before the first World War.
I agree with Wayne that today the connotation is usually negative; and I also understood the user to mean it literally and so not negatively at all.
Ted, KN1CBR
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Message: 13
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2019 10:29:49 -0700
From: Wayne Burdick <
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To: Frank Krozel <
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Cc: Elecraft Reflector <
[hidden email]>, Andy Durbin
<
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Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Of words and such
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"Beyond the pale" is an infrequently used idiomatic expression (at least in the U.S.), probably misunderstood by many. I believe it is used in a negative sense for the most part, but clearly that isn't what the writer meant.
Some English words have become completely useless in practice, like "semiannual" and "biannual," either of which can mean "twice a year" or "every other year." In fact if you look up the definition for one, you often see the other shown as a synonym.
Wayne
N6KR
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