Hoi Polloi

I was in the shower this morning, the only place I listen to the real radio, and I heard a commercial for Palm Beach. They were trying to entice you to visit, and their big selling point was that you could "hob knob like the hoi polloi" or something like that.

I got out of the shower, thinking, 'that's stupid. Hoi polloi means the masses. Why would I want to hob knob with the masses? Can you even hob knob with the masses?'

I went to yoga class, still thinking about this, so I called my dad after class to make sure I had the right definition of hoi polloi. He said, "No, it means the elite."

Well, clearly that is what the commercial thought it meant, but me, I still wasn't convinced. I googled it. I am right, but I also learned that a common misinterpretation of the word is the elite. And that you shouldn't say "the" hoi polloi, as hoi means the and you'd in essence be saying the the masses.

Now I sort of want to call the Palm Beach tourism board.