the vulgar

• “Nany yesterday took me to task in the vulgar manner usual with people of her low class, about my complaining to you; so she evidently knew that I had written to you on the subject.”

  Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Vol. 1 of 2

• “He distinguishes with his usual clearness between the different ranks of those employed in the production and exchange of goods, and intimates that his advice is not intended for the highest grade of traders, the merchants, whom he defines by what he calls the vulgar expression, as being “such as trade beyond sea.””

  Daniel Defoe

• “The Representant became furious, vociferated tout grossierement a la Francaise, [In the vulgar French manner.] that he knew there were five thousand aristocrates in Peronne, and that if he had not at least five hundred brought him before morning, he would declare the town in a state of rebellion.”

  A Residence in France During the Years 1792 1793 1794 and 1795

• “Yes, Cleinias, temperance in the vulgar sense; not that which in the forced and exaggerated language of some philosophers is called prudence, but that which is the natural gift of children and animals, of whom some live continently and others incontinently, but when isolated, was as we said, hardly worth reckoning in the catalogue of goods.”

  Laws

• “I never think of it without perceiving to what degree judgments, founded upon appearances to which the vulgar give so much weight, are deceitful, and how frequently audaciousness and pride are found in the guilty, and shame and embarrassment in the innocent.”

  The Confessions of J J Rousseau

• “I can easily see the bankruptcy of the vulgar musket-worship, -- though great men be musket - worshippers; -- and 'tis certain, as God liveth, the gun that does not need another gun, the law of love and justice alone, can effect a clean revolution.”

  English Traits (1856)

• “He that endeavours really to mortifie his lusts, and to comply with that truth in his life, which his Conscience is convinced of; is neerer a Christian, though he never heard of Christ; then he that believes all the vulgar Articles of the Christian faith, and plainly denyeth Christ in his life ....”

  Bygone Beliefs

• “He was the more discouraged, says the antiquary, as Mr. George Sandys's version and another by a reformer had failed in two different extremes; the first too elegant for the vulgar use, changing both metre and tunes, wherewith they had been long acquainted; the other as flat and poor, and as lamely executed as the old one.”

  The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland

• “Percy was mommer's angel boy with the sunny curls, who was to be raised a gentleman and to be “shielded from the vulgar surroundings and coarse associations of her husband's youth,” and he was proud popper's pet, whose good times weren't going to be spoiled by a narrow-minded old brute of a father, or whose talents weren't going to be smothered in poverty, the way the old man's had been.”

  Old Gorgon Graham

• “Lost causes had a romantic charm for her, and she liked to picture herself as standing aloof from the vulgar press of the Quirinal, and sacrificing her pleasure to the claims of an immemorial tradition….”

  Simon & Schuster: The House of Mirth

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