Totally inacceptable; beyond the limits of acceptable behavior or judgement

He's a cruel dictator, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct

È un dittatore crudele, che ha travalicato tutti i limiti di ogni ammissibile comportamento umano

The openly racist comments by the president of a "democratic" country at the press conference were beyond the pale and left all the media representatives shocked and speechless

I commenti palesemente razzisti da parte del presidente di un paese "democratico" sono andati oltre ogni limite e hanno scioccato e lasciato senza parole tutti i rappresentanti dei media presenti alla conferenza stampa

We decided not to show the film on TV because the violence shown is beyond the pale

Abbiamo deciso di non mostrare il filmato in TV perché la violenza ostentata va oltre ogni limite accettabile

In this expression pale does not mean colorless, but it indicates a region surrounded by a fence and ruled by a governing body. In the 14th century, during the Norman invasion of Ireland, only four eastern shires, - Louth, Meath, Dublin, and Kildare -, remained under the control of the English crown. The king's perimeter was marked with wooden fence posts, which were called "pales," from the Latin palus, meaning "stake." Within the Pale border, settlers lived under the protection of the crown, but once you passed "the Pale," you were outside the authority and safety of English law.