Talk:pale

Adj or Adv?

Etymology 1, Adjective

Is this adjectival use? "Her eyes were pale blue."
The general rule is that only an adverb can qualify (modify) an adjective. However, several on-line dictionaries give the usage "pale blue" or "pale yellow" as examples of the adjectival use of pale without batting an eyelid.
Of course, colors can be nouns in their own right. Is the sentence quoted above really elliptical (short) for "Her eyes were a pale blue"? If so, no grammatical issue arises.
However convenient this suggestion may seem, it is ultimately unsatisfying. "Pale blue" conveys a distinctive color fully capable of qualifying a noun, as in the phrase "pale blue eyes." In this phrase, pale is clearly not qualifying the noun eyes, but the adjective blue. Which brings us back to my original question, with its implication that perhaps pale needs to be recognised as an adverb, as well as an adjective.
--Rlugg 16:19, 10 June 2007 (UTC)Rlugg

I've observed the other end of this problem: WP has articles on numerous colors, each treated as if it were a noun (as if "blueness" were a redundant word). It may be that English in effect has a special grammatical quality for colors, so that they are some sort of hermaphroditic words, inherently coming a in identical-twin pairs, one an adjective and one a noun, spelled and pronounced identically. It doesn't strike me (a rank linguistic amateur) as surprising, since no one taught me about mass and uncountable nouns, nor (except maybe once) about collective nouns whose singular forms require sometimes singular and sometimes plural nouns (the flock was nestled in the fold, the flock were falling off cliffs and miring in marshes).

If my theory is right, it suggests that correspondingly, every adjective that modifies a color seems to function as an adverb without -ly being appended. To me "palely glistening" and "pale blue eyes", for instance, both sound right, and the latter corresponds to "eyes of pale blue" without even hinting of any difference in color. On the other hand, "Her eyes were palely blue" and "with palely blue eyes" both suggest to me something else, perhaps a hint of weakness beyond what might be implicity in color. And i think "brightly blue" as opposed to "bright blue" makes me wonder the thing described is glowing from within.

By the way, "bluer than the bluest sky" is a quite ordinary English phrase, but i understand educated Germans never use comparatives or superlatives of color, but see them as inherently absolute, like "unique" and "identical". Maybe colors are just linguistically different bcz of where their sensations are processed in the brain: maybe the info about them comes to the verbal centers differently from that about other senses and about the bright/dark and shape information from the visual system.
--User:Jerzy·t 03:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Figurative boundary (jurisdiction)

I'm not sure what the role of the associated citations page is, so i'm loath to start it. But here's a usage example, dumped from w:Pale (disambiguation), where it was utterly unsuitable:

"the Church claims no authority over unbaptized persons, as they are entirely without her pale" <ref> Catholic Encyclopedia.[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02258b.htm].</ref>
--User:Jerzy·t 03:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

RFV discussion: November–December 2021

The following information has failed Wiktionary's verification process (permalink).

Failure to be verified means that insufficient eligible citations of this usage have been found, and the entry therefore does not meet Wiktionary inclusion criteria at the present time. We have archived here the disputed information, the verification discussion, and any documentation gathered so far, pending further evidence.
Do not re-add this information to the article without also submitting proof that it meets Wiktionary's criteria for inclusion.

---

pale

rfv-sense A shore for bracing a timber before it is fastened. MooreDoor (talk) 12:33, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

RFV-failed Kiwima (talk) 19:50, 3 December 2021 (UTC)