What's the difference between blah and humbug?

Blah


Definition:

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He went over to win a penalty against Mexico the other day, and blah blether blah.
  • (2) Long Word... Long Word... Blah Blah Blah... I’m So Clever is at the Pleasance Courtyard, to 30 August JOE LYCETT Facebook Twitter Pinterest Joe Lycett.
  • (3) Yes, yes, Richard Gere in American Gigolo, Cary Grant in North by Northwest, Steve McQueen in Bullitt, Colin Firth and Daniel Craig in whatever, blah blah freaking blah.
  • (4) but during a very dark period of my life, tapes I made of Peter Green era Fleetwod Mac (the best blues player in the history of ever...) and Free (best band in history of blah blah...) virtually saved me from an early exit...." Katewashere : "My Dad bought me a walkman in 1984.
  • (5) So I could fret about the fact that my dog has a capsule wardrobe and worry about being a crazy dog lady and blah blah blah.
  • (6) Not from tax increases, says Mitt, and blahs along about how all those new jobs he's going to create will increase revenue.
  • (7) You could be run over tomorrow, blah, blah …" Oh, thank you, just before I drive across London to visit another chum.
  • (8) It contained blah about “smart cities” and equity funds, even a rupee-denominated bond.
  • (9) [Police say:] 'Oh, you know, loads of these cars get stolen, so we just need to check you are who you say you are, blah blah blah.'
  • (10) This contained a lot of false and frothy promises to “initiate an inclusive process of national debate …” blah, blah, blah.
  • (11) "Guardian readers are all like: 'Oh but you have to work for your money, blah blah blah and all that.'
  • (12) En route we've had Rick Santorum insisting that he does not equate homosexuality with bestiality – or, as he memorably phrased it, " man on dog " – and that when he had appeared to make a disobliging reference to black people , he had in fact been speaking of "blah" people.
  • (13) He says: ‘Right, this club has just called me – blah-blah-blah.
  • (14) It was frightening at first, but she preferred it to being in a band, where 'You're not going to do anything unless you're onstage with your specific people and your lights and your songs and... blah .'
  • (15) All the cliches – not taking life for granted, blah, blah, blah.
  • (16) Semi-autobiographical in focus, the album was a dog of monumental proportions, weak songs failing to carry a catastrophically weak concept (girl from wrong side of the tracks makes it in the big, wide blah blah blah).
  • (17) How much more interesting and revealing this show would have been if all of the liberal blah-blah here and the Ivy League newsroom nebbishes had been replaced by more current conservative agitprop and rightwing message enforcers.
  • (18) But out in The Real World, leopard print still has ridiculous connotations, such as the ones I mentioned above: Bet Lynch, untrustworthy temptresses, blah blah blah.
  • (19) The latest jobs report had the unemployment rate at 7.7%, the lowest level since December 2008 but still blah, and inflation at 1.6.
  • (20) "I didn't fall for the trick of Jonathan, 'I had no shoes, blah, blah,' all that stuff he was saying when he was campaigning," Kuti said.

Humbug


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To deceive; to impose; to cajole; to hoax.
  • (n.) An imposition under fair pretenses; something contrived in order to deceive and mislead; a trick by cajolery; a hoax.
  • (n.) A spirit of deception; cajolery; trickishness.
  • (n.) One who deceives or misleads; a deceitful or trickish fellow; an impostor.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Vice, folly and humbug – it is the point of satire really.
  • (2) What more timely image could there be for his departure than a Christmas costume and a prescience for all the humbug that will inevitably attend his death.
  • (3) Shortly after, they began to produce confectioneries such as chocolate limes, humbugs and caramels.
  • (4) Gary McNair: War on Christmas Anyone who has ever felt like saying “Bah, humbug!” to the John Lewis ad will find a kindred spirit in Gary McNair, playing a Santa working in a down-at-heel Christmas grotto who decides to investigate what Christmas means if you are poor.
  • (5) But, you may exclaim, what humbug for countries that invaded Iraq to excoriate others for violating sovereignty.
  • (6) Counties lose their names, trains lose their livery, ginger snaps lose their flavour and mint humbugs their sharp corners ... under my derationalisation programme, Yorkshire would get back its Ridings, the red telephone box would be a preserved species, there would be Pullman cars called Edna, a teashop in every high street and a proper card index in the public library."
  • (7) Accusing his opponents of "the most blatant hypocrisy in pretending they have changed to a modern, enlightened party", Lord Lester said: "What they have done is seek to destroy the central purpose of the bill under the guise of giving rights to others and it's complete humbug done for electoral purposes."
  • (8) It has not reached the pitch of disintegration at which humbug can be dropped."
  • (9) Lymphocystis disease is reported for the first time from the white-tailed damselfish, Dascyllus aruanus, and the black-tailed humbug, Dascyllus melanurus.
  • (10) I thought of the tourist scrums pushing each other off the pavements, jostling for souvenir humbugs and wind-up Beefeaters.
  • (11) Typical young man's title, you see, typical piece of that sort of humbugging, canting rhetoric, which young men - bless their hearts - specialise in.
  • (12) We probably all know a few pre-Games humbug-criers – shouting themselves hoarse in stadiums or rapt and sometimes in tears in front of the TV – who have looked like Scrooge on Christmas morning in the last few weeks.
  • (13) So the return of WTPS may serve to revive the genre, the old ghost donning its armour to do battle once more with humbug and pomposity.
  • (14) It was a strange experience to hear this paragon of logic, sceptical of all humbug trotting out stories that normally he would have scoffed at.
  • (15) It's enough to put you off shopping altogether, and has done for Nicole Slavin who is "bah humbug about Christmas , partly because of the commercialisation and the sheer social pressure to buy people things".
  • (16) For Labour, with the taste of Suez still in their mouths, Hugh Gaitskell described this as "the worst humbug and hypocrisy."
  • (17) Their latest, Humbug , recorded in the Californian desert with Josh Homme, reveals a more mature, assured band.