Back in the 1880's most literate people would have had a 'classical'
education, where Ancient Greek was an integral part of the syllabus, so
many educated people could automatically read (and pronounce) Greek text. A
phrase like 'hoi polloi' was well known (with the correct meaning). I was
educated myself in Ancient Greek in the 1950's in England (I was not very
good at it - one of my greatest triumphs was passing my O-level exam!).
,
Roger Key
Larry Woods wrote:
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.
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