I once lived in an apartment across the hall from a friendly guy who couldn't have been nicer. But one night the police raided his apartment and arrested him for trafficking in stolen goods. Oops! Perhaps good fences don't make good neighbors after all.

But why is someone who buys or receives stolen goods and then resells them called a "fence"?

"Fence," a shortening of "defense, originally meant any means of protection. So, because illicit transactions between burglars and dealers took place under the "defense" or cover of secrecy, people started describing the dealer himself as a "fence."

In fact, "fencing," meaning to fight with swords, foils or ep?es, also derives from the concept of defense; each swordsman is "defensing" himself against his opponent. "Fence" made its first appearance as a verb in William Shakespeare's comedy "The Merry Wives of Windsor," when the character Rugby said, "Alas, sir, I cannot fence," which is probably what my neighbor should have said to the first thief who approached him.

As long as we're fencing, many people wonder whether "picketing," as in marching up and down in protest, has anything to do with a picket fence. You bet.

The noun "picket," derived from the French "piquet," originally meant a "pointed stake." These pickets were often planted in the ground at regular intervals to mark a boundary or support a fence, hence the term "picket fence."

By analogy, soldiers posted at set intervals as a line of defense were also called "pickets" and their perimeter a "picket line." So when strikers positioned themselves in a line outside a factory, they were said to be "picketing," and policemen sometimes had to repulse a pickets' charge.

For medieval villagers threatened by marauders or invaders, the stakes were high. Literally. They often protected their town by surrounding it with a fence made of pointed stakes. This barricade was called a "pale," from the Latin "palus," pole.

Anything lurking outside that fence was said to be "beyond the pale," a term we still use to mean "uncivilized, outside the bounds of acceptable behavior."

Stakes are also used to demarcate the boundaries of a piece of property, so police officers use the term "stakeout" to describe their monitoring of a particular area. The officers who raided my neighbor's apartment probably staked it out beforehand, which is always a good strategy when you're contemplating a fence.

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. To find out more about Rob Kyff and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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