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: 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.