I don't doubt you must have come across the term used that way Steve. But I suspect it's pretty unusual.

Actually the general use, with its sneering overtones, is a distortion in itself. All the Greek means is "the people" or "the majority", no implication of the contempt it has come to imply. A pretty despicable term these days really.

There was a Glasgow punk band called Oi Polloi, which I suppose constituted reclaiming it as an honourable label.