Population v. populace v. people

Beware of  the obtuse tendency to use of population  where people  or public is all that is needed. 

The “local population” is often used instead of “the local people”. It is probably simply a case of the longer word sounding more important and  technical. Well it is more technical, because it refers to a number. The population of Germany is 80 million is correct. The German population is good at making sausages is just silly. So please, people, use people or else the (general) public.

Populace is a little harder. It either means population, as in the inhabitants of a place, in which case you should prefer population; or it means the common people, the “plebs”. 

You can stop reading here. The rest in a mini-rant about something else.

Even so, as I am on the subject, allow me to observe that hoi polloi seems to be in the process of reversing its meaning to its exact opposite. It is a Greek term that means the populace, the lower orders, the plebs, the common people – the non-aristocrats. Yet, perhaps because using Greek, even if  totally wrongly, is deemed a mark of great erudition, the term is now being used to mean “the upper classes”.

This is so wrong I cannot begin to describe my disappointment. One last thing, hoi is the Greek for “the”. To write “the hoi polloi” is tantamount to writing “the the common people”, and then compounding your error by  pretending it means  “the aristocrats”, or “the the aristocrats” --  or something.