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I wanted to talk about the cities where the population is high. My correspondent told me we must say:

The most populace cities

Instead of:

The most populated cities

I don't understand how the noun populace can be used as an adjective. Can you explain that to me?

ColleenV
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lionel
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1 Answers1

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You've misheard, but it's an easy mistake to make. What the person suggested was:

The most populous cities

Populace and populous are homophones—Oxford Dictionaries lists both as /'pɒpjʊləs/. Here are the definitions of the two words (from Oxford Dictionaries):

populace
NOUN

[treated as singular or plural] The people living in a particular country or area.
"the party misjudged the mood of the populace"

populous
ADJECTIVE

Having a large population; densely populated.
"the populous city of Shanghai"

As for why populous must be used instead of populated, it depends on the meaning you're trying to put across. If you wanted it to mean "cities with the most people," you'd be fine (in my opinion) using populated. If you wanted it to mean "cities with the highest population density," I think you'd have to use populous instead.

LMS
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    Populated just means "having people", at all. Calico, California, is not populated. If you wanted to say "cities with the most people," you'd need "most heavily populated" (and even that suggests density rather than absolute numbers). – Michael Lorton Jul 11 '17 at 14:51
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    This is also an extremely common mistake made by native writers. – chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic- Jul 11 '17 at 17:12
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    Yeah ... it's possible that the OP didn't mishear, but the correspondent made a spelling mistake. – LarsH Jul 11 '17 at 19:18
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    @chrylis: Is it? Never seen it. – Lightness Races in Orbit Jul 12 '17 at 00:52
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    @LightnessRacesinOrbit I think s/he might have meant the original "mistake" the correspondent corrected, that of populated vs. populous. I'd agree that you hear people say "populated" at this juncture almost every time. Partly because the word "populous" is effectively isolated to journalism. ;) – Luke Sawczak Jul 12 '17 at 01:23
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    @LukeSawczak: I see people writing "populous" when they meant "populace" All. The. [insert expletive here]. Time. The reverse mistake is much rarer. – Martha Jul 12 '17 at 01:27
  • @Martha Well, I certainly agree that "populace" is even less in everyday use than "populous"! – Luke Sawczak Jul 12 '17 at 01:29
  • For what it's worth, @Malvolio is right and LMS's current answer is simply wrong for that part of the question. Given that it's already sitting on a pile of upvotes and is going to be the accepted answer, what's the best solution? To just edit it to correct the original writer's misunderstanding? – lly Jul 12 '17 at 08:36
  • @Martha: Never seen it. Maybe it's an American thing. In actual English I've never encountered it. – Lightness Races in Orbit Jul 12 '17 at 09:31
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit I've seen it in both, however more often in British English. – That1Guy Jul 12 '17 at 16:58
  • @That1Guy: You must live out in farm country ;) – Lightness Races in Orbit Jul 12 '17 at 17:02
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit: I think it's an SCA thing: people often want to talk about the kingdom's populace, but end up talking about the nonsensical concept of the kingdom's populous instead. – Martha Jul 12 '17 at 17:29
  • @Martha: Sorry what's SCA? – Lightness Races in Orbit Jul 12 '17 at 17:30
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit Society for Creative Anachronism. Medieval LARP. – chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic- Jul 12 '17 at 18:25
  • @lly: For what it's worth, there was a (now-deleted) comment thread discussing populated vs. populous that agreed that populated was acceptable. I originally didn't include the last paragraph in my answer, but that comment thread asked that I do. It's my opinion that "most populated," while perhaps not strictly correct, is so widely used and widely understood that it probably doesn't matter. – LMS Jul 12 '17 at 21:00
  • @chrylis maybe your LARPers grew up playing Populous – Chris H Jul 13 '17 at 08:48