interesting turn for "hoi polloi"

[Wilson Gray]

I *knew* that the demise of the classical education would lead to this! O,
tempora! O, Mores! Well, what can you do?

-Wilson

On 8/2/06, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Fwd: interesting turn for "hoi polloi"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "hoi polloi" drifts even further from its roots...
>
> > From: Doug Worcester Kenter <dkenter at stanford.edu>
> > Date: August 2, 2006 9:57:12 AM PDT
> > To: "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu>
> > Subject: interesting turn for "hoi polloi"
> >
> > a columnist in the san francisco chronicle appears to use the term
> > "hoi
> > polloi" to refer to polarities in social class, rather than just, "the
> > people":
> >
> > Now we are not suggesting that he has willfully neglected his
> > duties, or
> > that anyone in the organization would call him on it even if he
> > was. He has
> > Lew Wolff and above him, John Fisher, pot-committed to his
> > leadership style,
> > but as he spends more time with the hoi and less with the polloi,
> > he leaves
> > more and more of the day-to-day A's-ery to aide de camp David
> > Forst, to the
> > point where Forst is almost the daily go-to guy on the baseball side.
> >
> > http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/
> > 2006/08/02/SPG79K9MGE1.DTL
> >
> > i don't think i've ever heard the term split in half and used like
> > this.
> > maybe "hoi" sounds like "high," which creates a contrast from the
> > usual
> > meaning of the term.
>
> it's new to me too, and it's not in our recent archives.  but here
> are some more examples:
>
> ... and then it's off to the office to bitch on the phone with the
> Michael Kors about the latest of the outrages committed by the hoi
> and the polloi. ...
> iamprettynyc.com/spotlight.php?s=7
>
> 1. Indistinguishable from the hoi and the polloi, that's me, except
> in the height department. I speak in complete sentences mostly, have
> been to more than a ...
> www.minnesotacrimewave.org/carlbrookins/greedy.html
>
> 2. It is the interesting, though, is it not, that it is the peoples
> like the John Galliano and his ilk, dictate to the hoi and the polloi
> what is the ...
> shoeblogs.com/wordpress/2005/05/19/440/
>
> 3. Mickey himself was not in imminent danger of falling into the
> hands of the hoi and the polloi, but his predecessor Steamboat Willie
> was. ...
> technologyfront.com/journalism/2002/10/11.html
>
> 4. ... back in December of 1987, and his and Joan's home up in the
> Hollywood Hills was jammed to the walls with the hoi and the polloi,
> and at one point I'm ...
> harlanellison.com/quotes.htm
>
> 5. Now of course there is nothing that slightly famous types like
> better than to chat with the little peole, the ordinary joes, the hoi
> and the polloi. ...
> colonelknowledge.blogspot.com/ 2006_05_01_colonelknowledge_archive.html
>
> 6. He is pretty comfortable with being desired by the hoi and the
> polloi, and at the time is having an affair with a much older woman.
> She is twenty-three. ...
> kill-your-inner-child.blogspot.com/
>
> -----
>
> these fall into two groups: one (like kenter's original) in which
> "the hoi" and "the polloi" are contrasted, as hoi/high/elite vs.
> polloi/people/low (so that "the hoi polloi" is being interpreted as
> meaning 'the high and the low', that is, 'everybody'; and one (in #5,
> clearly) in which "the hoi" and "the polloi" are understood as rough
> synonyms meaning 'the common people' (so that "the hoi polloi" is
> being interpreted as meaning 'the common people, your ordinary Janes
> and Joes').
>
> it's not always clear which interpretation was intended in some of
> these examples.
>
> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)
>
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--
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out
the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon
them.

Frederick Douglass

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