One of the things that grate me is when people say “hoi polloi,” instead of “the hoi polloi.” “The hoi polloi” is an American, or an English-language, idiom, meaning “the great unwashed” (basically). Some people sniff that the phrase is redundant, translating as “the the great unwashed.” You know the type of person who writes “lede,” instead of “lead,” to be all insidery and cool? That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. Blech.
Well, the great Victor Davis Hanson, in a great column today, writes “hoi polloi,” without any “the.” And, baby, from a classics scholar — I’ll take it. From non-VDHes? I.e., from the hoi polloi? Don’t think so.
P.S. I admit, I have trouble writing “the al-Qaeda camp” — “the the Qaeda camp.” And I have at last made my peace with ordering “a panini,” instead of a panino, or two panini. (Same applies to “cannoli” — no one in America has ever ordered a cannolo, to my knowledge.)
P.P.S. Whenever I write something like “One of the things that grate me,” people write, “Shouldn’t that be ‘grates’?” That’s one of the things that grate me too.