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

On 2025-04-08, Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> wrote:

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

"pallid" and "blank" do not look like the same root to me at all.

According to Etymonline, blank comes from the Proto Indo-Europan
root bhel-:

This also might be the root for the slavik words above like "biela".

https://www.etymonline.com/word/*bhel-

But "pallid", from "pallidus" is supposedly from this PIE root:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/*pel-#etymonline_v_52783

Both roots have descendants in Slavic languages.

Slovak:

  *bhel -> biela farba (white color, feminime)

  *pel -> plavá farba (pale color)

Now about "album"? The PIE root there is albh-. The non-loanword we get
in Slovak out of that is evidently is the word "labuť", meaning swan.

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