What's the difference between bland and vapid?

Bland


Definition:

  • (a.) Mild; soft; gentle; smooth and soothing in manner; suave; as, a bland temper; bland persuasion; a bland sycophant.
  • (a.) Having soft and soothing qualities; not drastic or irritating; not stimulating; as, a bland oil; a bland diet.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) For further education, this would be my priority: a substantial increase in funding and an end to tinkering with the form of qualifications and bland repetition of the “parity of esteem” trope.
  • (2) Reoperation was more frequent after valve replacement with bioprostheses (6.7% per patient year) than after valvuloplasty (4.3% per patient year) and after mechanical valve replacement (1.5% per patient year; P less than 0.02), and was necessitated mainly by residual or recurrent valve dysfunction after valvuloplasty, bland or infected periprosthetic leaks in mechanical valves and degradation of bioprostheses.
  • (3) "Everyone calls him the Socialist Worker Padre," one bland senior cleric told me with a sly and dismissive laugh.
  • (4) ABNORMALITIES OF THE CERVICAL EPITHELIUM ARE SET OUT IN TWO MAIN GROUPS: bland lesions which are regarded as unrelated to malignancy, and malign lesions which are considered as potential precursors of invasive carcinoma.
  • (5) Embolization with avitene, PVA and ethanol induced a more bland histological reaction than the one observed with IBCA.
  • (6) Sir Christopher Bland, the former BBC chairman, told the BBC News channel the allegations were "very serious" but warned against jumping to conclusions about Rippon stepping aside.
  • (7) Among pro-independence people there are widespread concerns that if the SNP moves too quickly on a referendum it will cast the choice in the often bland New Labour-ish terms it uses for everyday politics – and thus deprive Scotland of a crucial opportunity to discuss its future, as well as threatening their chances of winning.
  • (8) But blandness in public should not be mistaken for blandness of character, and there are signs that she is beginning to emerge from the passive role she has been playing.
  • (9) Most examples measure less than or equal to 0.5 cm and are composed of a partially encapsulated mass of bland Schwann cells and innumerable tiny axons arranged in interlacing fascicles.
  • (10) His neutralisation strategy has amounted to little more than bland statements of support and efforts to keep the NHS out of the news.
  • (11) He is a regular panellist on comedy news quizzes, and reaches for Wodehouse in depicting 70s foreign secretary Lord Home "playing Lord Emsworth to Heath's Empress of Blandings".
  • (12) Pathologic examination of the orbital breast metastases revealed two types: an adenocarcinomatous pattern with nests of pleomorphic malignant appearing cells and a histiocytoid variant with bland, large cells similar to histiocytes.
  • (13) Unfortunately, the commercials are so bland and empty that they’re almost certainly doomed to failure.
  • (14) Much of the time he sounds bland, monotonal, bobbing gently along.
  • (15) The frequency of major events during follow-up (thromboembolism, anticoagulant related hemorrhage, bland perivalvular leak and prosthetic valve endocarditis) were similar, but the frequency of primary tissue valve failure was markedly different for the two valves (1.1% per patient-year for Ionescu-Shiley valves and 5.9% for the Hancock valve).
  • (16) A bland vasculopathic process resulting from metabolic or immunologic disturbances appears to be the best explanation for this new syndrome, which has previously been recognized only in Japan.
  • (17) The anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery (Bland-White-Garland Syndrome) is a rare congenital malformation reported to occur in 0.25-0.5% of all congenital cardiac anomalies.
  • (18) He recommends not a bland and stimulus-free environment, but one whose elements are unobtrusive and unambiguous.
  • (19) David Bell will be online this afternoon at 4.15pm to answer your points at www.EducationGuardian.co.uk Changing faces of Ofsted Stewart Sutherland 1992-1994 Sutherland was criticised for a slow start and bland inspections.
  • (20) Two deceptively benign-appearing, unclassifiable but very similar fibromyxoid sarcomas characterized histologically by bland, innocuous-appearing fibroblastic cells and a swirling, whorled growth pattern are presented.

Vapid


Definition:

  • (a.) Having lost its life and spirit; dead; spiritless; insipid; flat; dull; unanimated; as, vapid beer; a vapid speech; a vapid state of the blood.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Beyond that, MSNBC devotes three hours each morning to a show hosted by a former rightwing GOP congressman and his cavalcade of vapid "centrist" establishment journalists such as Mark Halperin (then again, Fox features the idiosyncratic and unpredictable Shepard Smith each night).
  • (2) She comes across as vapid and totally uncouth without a bit of finesse about her.
  • (3) Greece Aligned to Eurovision's Balkan Bloc Not only is Saki Rouvas's This is Our Night marvellously, teeth-grindingly, competition-winningly vapid, but more importantly, Greece is the epicentre of the many-tentacled Balkan Bloc.
  • (4) The exhibition content is, in the main, as vapid as the architecture is extravagant.
  • (5) "I used to think that focusing on the visual aspect was really vapid and ridiculous too," she admits, "but I've come to realise it's actually one of the most powerful tools I have to work with.
  • (6) Since then, while some mainstream rap has veered to the materialistic and misogynistic, there have always been successful rappers who have rallied against the vapid.
  • (7) For while humanists work hard to create new ceremonies, many find them vapid.
  • (8) She zeited the geist of the mid-90s superbly, but Bridget, never trying be too strident (offputting to men) was for me the epitome of post-feminism – vapid, consumerist and self-obsessed.
  • (9) Vapid and sexless, pop was little more than a Smash Hits remake of American Bandstand three decades earlier.
  • (10) He may look vapid sometimes for Chelsea but he has scored nine goals in Europe and there are only two players, Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski, with more this season.
  • (11) For the majority, however, the primary concern is not vapid rhetoric, nor even resentment about expenses fiddling, which parts of the media have now elevated above substantive policy arguments for years.
  • (12) For Brazil, there was also the added satisfaction of seeing Fred, who has been the subject of so much criticism following his vapid displays against Croatia and Mexico, get on the scoresheet.
  • (13) In his thoughtful demeanour seems to be an implicit criticism of the vapidity of today's world.
  • (14) Nobody has been subjected to these vapid discrediting techniques more than Noam Chomsky.
  • (15) It's said by a really vapid character who we're not meant to like.
  • (16) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Game of Thrones: spectacular but vapid.
  • (17) As one of their champions, Bono, recently put it in the New York Times , their music "contains all the big themes and ideas that make all around them seem so vapid".
  • (18) And indeed, see what happened in 2008 when Politico's own Mike Allen interviewed George Bush with questions so vapid and reverent that it would have shamed his profession if it were capable of that.
  • (19) United did not play anywhere close to their top level but they did not have to when their opponents were so vapid.
  • (20) Vapid passages can be forgiven if they are followed by substance.