Fairmont Toastmasters Club

[Caroline Cooke]

Caroline Cooke, "Beyond the Pale" (Mar 16,2005)


Beyond the Pale: idiom that has come to mean unacceptable or unreasonable behaviour.

The expression comes from early English rule in Ireland. The term "Pale" was the area over which the English exerted the most control. Those living elsewhere were considered out of control. The term was first used in the 14th century and initially included areas around Dublin. By the early 1500s, The Pale was extended to include parts of Louth, Meath, Kildare, as well as Dublin, and effectively eliminated when the English achieved dominance over the entire island.


"His outlandish conduct was beyond the pale"

[Caroline Cooke]

Grammarian Report (Mar 16, 2005) by Caroline Cooke

Janet, Lan, Angie, and Tareq all used the Word of the Day properly.

I found that there was a real improvement in the use of filler words. There was a noted lack of "basically" and "I think". "You know" has been added to the list of filler words to watch out for. Run-on sentences were avoided quite successfully. Table Topics still present the largest tendency to run-on.