From dmeadows@idirect.com Thu Aug 16 13:30:39 2001 Received: from mxu102.u.washington.edu (mxu102.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.15]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f7GKUa013962 for ; Thu, 16 Aug 2001 13:30:36 -0700 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by mxu102.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with SMTP id f7GKUaT22656 for ; Thu, 16 Aug 2001 13:30:36 -0700 Received: FROM ares.idirect.com BY mxu2.u.washington.edu ; Thu Aug 16 13:30:35 2001 -0700 Received: from raoul.idirect.com (on-ham-a53-04-127.look.ca [216.154.53.191]) by ares.idirect.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA70737 for ; Thu, 16 Aug 2001 16:31:49 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20010816163009.02a42dd0@idirect.com> X-Sender: dmeadows@idirect.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 16:30:45 -0400 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: David Meadows Subject: Re: "hoi polloi" and Larry King In-Reply-To: <000f01c1268f$10dd4540$b4cb64a8@jfgannon> References: <3B79B447.124B@sinewave.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable At 04:07 PM 16/08/2001 -0400, you wrote: >I wonder if this mistake was influenced by the use of the expression "hoity >toity". I think it is used to characterize someone's manner as >pretentious. By the way there is certainly some thing odd about calling >the Windsor family's line is sports nouveau riche. It might fit Ralph >Lauren, as in Polo Ralph Lauren. > >J.F. Gannon The American Heritage Dictionary agrees with you: Hoi polloi is a borrowing of the Greek phrase hoi polloi, consisting of=20 hoi, meaning =93the=94 and used before a plural, and polloi, the plural of= =20 polus, =93many.=94 In Greek hoi polloi had a special sense, =93the greater= =20 number, the people, the commonalty, the masses.=94 This phrase has generally= =20 expressed this meaning in English since its first recorded instance, in an= =20 1837 work by James Fenimore Cooper. Hoi polloi is sometimes incorrectly=20 used to mean =93the elite,=94 possibly because it is reminiscent of high and= =20 mighty or because it sounds like hoity-toity. =95Since the Greek phrase=20 includes an article, some critics have argued that the phrase the hoi=20 polloi is redundant. But phrases borrowed from other languages are often=20 reanalyzed in English as single words. For example, a number of Arabic noun= =20 phrases were borrowed into English as simple nouns. The Arabic element al=96= =20 means =93the,=94 and appears in English nouns such as alcohol and alchemy.= =20 Thus, since no one would consider a phrase such as =93the alcohol=94 to be= =20 redundant, criticizing the hoi polloi on similar grounds seems pedantic. .... culled from http://www.bartleby.com/61/55/H0235500.html dm .