vulg-

This may be one of the most contradictory words around because the term "common people" has a considerably different application in these modern times than it did in Roman times and down through the centuries of upper-class and royal societies.

For a long time, "common people" were crude, coarse, uneducated, etc.; while those who were in the "upper classes" were polite, educated (sometimes), and superior to the "riff-raff or disreputable, common, or undesirable people".