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All Site ContentHamletAct 1Scene 3
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Word Nerd: "vulgar"
Context and Language Videos
Act 1,
Scene 3
Lines 56-65

An explanation on the word "vulgar" in Act 1, Scene 3 of myShakespeare's Hamlet. 

myShakespeare | Hamlet 1.3 Word Nerd: Vulgar

Polonius 

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stayed for. There, my blessing with thee. 
And these few precepts in thy memory 
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, 
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware 
Video Transcript: 

SARAH:  I was at a rather elegant dinner party in Paris recently, and a fashionable French woman said that she found Americans in general to be "vulgaires". She didn't mean that Americans use crude or offensive language — vulgarities; she meant that they are lacking in refinement, somewhat common in tastes and behavior.

RALPH:  Hmmph.  Well, it is easy to understand the evolution of these two similar senses of vulgar, since they come from the Latin meaning "the common people".  I bet that your friend, like all the snooty French I've met, also thinks that Americans are too quick to get friendly with everyone they meet — which is exactly what Polonius is cautioning Laertes not to do.