Word of the Week!

Hello Saloners,

Here again is your word of the week. Have you ever been strolling along a busy street or attending a crowded party or attending a concert and thought to yourself- "Self, I wish I had some new word to appropriately describe these masses."

Well, I have discovered the answer you've been searching for. Thanks to the indelible Chuck Bass and his recent mission to locate where rock bottom is actually located, we now have rediscovered the word Hoi Polloi.

Hoi Polloi:

An expression meaning "the many" in Greek, is used in English to denote "the masses" or "the people", usually in a derogatory sense.

The phrase became known to English scholars probably from Pericles' Funeral Oration, as mentioned in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. Pericles uses it in a positive way when praising the Athenian democracy, contrasting it with hoi oligoi, "the few". Its current English usage originated in the early 19th century, a time when it was generally accepted one must know Greek and Latin in order to be well educated. The phrase was originally written in Greek letters. Knowledge of these languages would serve to set apart the speaker from the common people who did not have that education.