Re: Beyond the pale... (Was: do { quit; } else { })

On Mon, 7 Apr 2025 23:30:39 -0000 (UTC)
Kaz Kylheku <643-408-1753@kylheku.com> wrote:

On 2025-04-07, Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:

But then I wonder if there is any connection between the word "pale"
meaning "post" and its modern meaning (as in "A Whiter Shade of
Pale"). 

 
Wictionary asserts an etymology hypothesis for "beyond the pale"
having the pole interpretation:
 
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beyond_the_pale
 
Etymonoline pegs "pale" (white) as being of Latin oriigin ("pallidus")

white,pale:
Russian - белый, бледный
Bulgarian - бяло, блед
Croatian - bijela, blijeda
Polish - biały, blady
Czech - bílý, bledý
Lithuanian - baltas, blyškus
Spanish - blanco, pálido
Italian - bianco, pallido
French - blanc, pâle
Romanian - alb, pal
Latin - album, pallidus

It looks as the same root that undertook different phonetic
transformation.
More so, not being a linguist, I can allow to myself a wilder guess -
the root is older than the split between indo-european and semitic
languages
Hebrew - לָבָן

and "pale" (stick, pole) of Latin origian also ("palus"):
 

Russian - палка
Ukrainian - палиця
Spanish - palo

https://www.etymonline.com/word/pale
 
From that we have words like "impale" and "pallid".
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