It reminded me of an 1880-ish British photography book I once requested
from the closed stacks at the Boston Public Library while waiting for
the books I really needed to arrive. The eloquent, flourishy,
compound-sentenced preface ended with "... but that would be to
condescend to the <gibberish>" where the gibberish was two words
written in Greek. Someone I knew who was taking Ancient Greek was
nearby, and he immediately recognized the words. "Hoi Polloi"
I guess the author didn't want to condescend to a fellow photographer
by transliterating the Greek.
Well, actually, "Hoi polloi" means "the numerous ones", "the mass" - as
opposed to what has (erroneously) become the meaning in English nowadays:
"the few", "the elite".
Bernard
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