Fwd: interesting turn for "hoi polloi"

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

Or influenced perhaps by "hoity-toity."
 
Gerald Cohen

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From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Charles Doyle
Sent: Wed 8/2/2006 2:07 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Fwd: interesting turn for "hoi polloi"



Influenced, perhaps, by the Cockney (or quasi-Cockney) pronunciation of "high"?  So, we would have the "hoi polloi" in contrast to the "lower polloi"--"polloi" (or Cocknified "polli") sounding a little like "people" (those ancient Greeks, you know, did tend to mumble; the ones who wanted to speak clearly had to practice with pebbles in their mouths).

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 14:39:56 -0400
>From: sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
>Subject: Re: Fwd: interesting turn for "hoi polloi"
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>arnold writes:
>
>>"hoi polloi" drifts even further from its roots...
>>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Another interesting example, in my experience, is a student of Greek (text only), for whom the romanized "hoi polloi" became somehow so detached from the Greek roots  & so imbedded in American speech as to have completely reversed its meaning to be, instead:  "elite class" or "high society."

>AM

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