#34594
07/04/2001 9:48 AM
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273 |
Could someone help me with a query? I thought that I had read somewhere that hoi polloi meant the upper strata of society, yet I read this today in the New York Times online edition:
On Monday his imagists sent him out, sans coat and tie, shirtsleeves rolled above the elbow, for a gambol with Laura to the Jefferson Memorial. The man who is sliding in the polls on the issue of whether he cares about average Americans and minorities was trying to seem in touch with the hoi polloi, shaking hands and chatting up tourists, singing out "Happy Fourth of July!"
Does hoi polloi mean the proletariat or the plutocrats?
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#34595
07/04/2001 11:30 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 328
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 328 |
Hoi polloi is Greek for "the common people." It is often incorrectly taken to mean "high society", probably because of the way it sounds. Here's a usage note from Atomica*: USAGE NOTE Hoi polloi is a borrowing of the Greek phrase hoi polloi, consisting of hoi, meaning “the” and used before a plural, and polloi, the plural of polus, “many.” In Greek hoi polloi had a special sense, “the greater number, the people, the commonalty, the masses.” This phrase has generally expressed this meaning in English since its first recorded instance, in an 1837 work by James Fenimore Cooper. Hoi polloi is sometimes incorrectly used to mean “the elite,” possibly because it is reminiscent of high and mighty or because it sounds like hoity-toity.*Atomica is a handy little reference tool which you can download. If interested, click on http://www.atomica.com
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#34596
07/04/2001 12:25 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 275
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 275 |
Thanks Rapunzel! There are still many people who think that the word mean "the elite" or "high society". As recently as a week ago I received a postcard from a friend who said that the people at a National Park Lodge where they were staying are the hoi poloi because they had leather luggage and sporty cars.
I hope your post will reach many, although on this board, I am sure that everyone knows the true meaning.
chronist
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#34597
07/04/2001 12:29 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 275
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 275 |
Vernon, welcome to the board! I hope you will give us more posts that will make us more accurate in our conversations.
chronist
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#34598
07/04/2001 1:10 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Hello, V.C.! Welcome aBoard. There's a lot to be said for an old fahion classic education. One of the things the Good Sisters insisted upon was our learning the correct use of many phrases that originated in languages other than English/American including hoi polloi... and even a few in our Mother Tongue. My memory of the 1940s into the mid-1950s is that the phrase was used correctly in those years even in newspapers and on radio... Dr. Bill - help me out here - wasn't there a radio interview program in the 1940s that boasted it was "the voice of the hoi polloi?" In days of yore there were lists of "Common Phrases From Foreign Languages" at the back of dictionaries .. check out the AWAD chat (You can connect from the bottom of the AWAD Home page) with G. Nichols of Random House, in which she said it was the cost that caused the glossary's being dropped. I would pay the extra for a dictionary with that feature but Random House evidently feels most people would not. How I wish Random House would make a separate book available with all those phrases!  Hey! Is that an idea, or ... what !?!?
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#34599
07/04/2001 5:18 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Wow, surely the good sisters taught you what no one else has yet mentioned, that "the hoi polloi" is an egregious tautology, since "hoi" means "the".
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#34600
07/04/2001 7:20 PM
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273 |
I thank you all for your kindness and courtesy in welcoming a stranger, and for the gentility displayed in answering my question.
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#34601
07/05/2001 7:48 AM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
I have posed the question 'who or what are hoi polloi?' to many people. To date, most have come up with the 'high society' take.
So what other interesting vocab. exists for Plebeians and the aristocrats alike?
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#34602
07/05/2001 11:04 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Bobyb reminds us that hoi is an article. Odd that we'd borrow an article along with the word itself. Is that because of the rhyme, maybe?
Oher words for the polloi: fellaheen, the Great Unwashed.
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#34603
07/05/2001 12:23 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
an egregious tautology
Are you going to take the word of someone who thinks that standing out from the herd is a bad thing?
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#34604
07/05/2001 4:06 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
hoi is an article. Odd that we'd borrow an article along with the word itself
Must have something to do with the El Niño.
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#34605
07/05/2001 4:37 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Some things I found on the web suggest that the term for the elite might be "hoi aristoi".
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#34606
07/05/2001 6:26 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
I think in saying it they implied "the (phrase) Hoi Polloi ..." but what the heck, they are a Belgian order and their French and Belgique is flawless.
My fault not the Good Sisters ...
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#34607
07/05/2001 7:12 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
So what other interesting vocab. exists for Plebeians and the aristocrats alikeIn the society that I tend to mix, the terms ar "lumpen proletariat" and "bourgeoisie." The first cannot be relied on but may be used, the second are in danger of death a la lampost. Preferably after the last king has been hung by the entrails of the last priest! (sorry, Father Steve) 
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#34608
07/05/2001 7:12 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
So what other interesting vocab. exists for Plebeians and the aristocrats alikeIn the society that I tend to mix, the terms are "lumpen proletariat" and "bourgeoisie." The first cannot be relied on but may be used, the second are in danger of death a la lampost. Preferably after the last king has been hung by the entrails of the last priest! (sorry, Father Steve)
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#34609
07/05/2001 10:13 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
Amongst my favourites are the great unwashed
and for that other lot, hooray henryies
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#34610
07/05/2001 11:47 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
maverick "and for that other lot, hooray henryies" Reminded me of Fenimore Cooper's novel Deerslayer, with character Hurry Harry, and further of Mark Twain's prowess as a literary critic, as may be sampled at the URL below: http://users.telerama.com/~joseph/cooper/cooper.html
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#34611
07/05/2001 11:50 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
Thanks, Bill - I enjoyed the link.
edit I even managed to find a useful quote for an essay I have just been finishing, so nice timing Dr B!
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#34612
07/06/2001 12:41 AM
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 273 |
Thank you for the link, it was a very entertaining read. My memories of childhood boredom induced by the Classics Illustrated comic versions of Cooper's works have been justified. Thanks too for the tip on how to make URLs active.
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#34613
07/06/2001 5:06 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
Alcohol and algebra are other words that we've borrowed complete with article.
Bingley
Bingley
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#34614
07/06/2001 8:40 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460
addict
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addict
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460 |
My youngest son is a professional jazz musician and one of his current musical hats is managing and leading a band called "The Great Unwashed".
I hope to see and hear them perform when I visit Melbourne in a fortnight or so.
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#34615
07/07/2001 1:54 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
We await the upload, paulb!
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