(a.) Contrived for the purpose of making a show, or gaining applause; deceptive; unreal.
Example Sentences:
(1) 'Fashionable theories and permissive claptrap set the scene for a society in which old values of discipline and restraint were denigrated.'
(2) Responding to May’s comments, the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, called the slogan “jingoistic claptrap” and said it showed no further policy development.
(3) The fact that he chose possibly the least suitable place, time and context to utter his claptrap, only to fall asleep a little later during the Milan opening of the Shoah museum at which he was attending, might show that he is not as in control of the headlines as he used to be.
(4) Visitors to the US theme park will get "a noisy American" experience, with "claptrap", says Berger, noting that "Harry Potter fans are very passionate people.
(5) UK will have under 18 months to reach deal, says EU Brexit broker Read more The Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, called the slogan “jingoistic claptrap” and said it showed no further policy development.
(6) To Marr’s perfectly reasonable questions he cried: “BBC claptrap!” God knows, the mayor can turn on the charm like no other politician.
(7) Thus the usual claptrap about "diversity" being something to celebrate is meaningless when it is not publicly acknowledged.
(8) At a recent sermon in Trinity Wall Street in New York City, supposedly the richest Anglican parish in the world, Welby said: “The old sermons that we have heard so often in England, which I grew up with – which if you boiled them down all they effectively said was, ‘Wouldn’t the world be a nicer place if we were all a bit nicer?’ – that is the kind of moral claptrap that Jesus does not permit us to accept.” Welby sounds confused here but since he is by no means an idiot it’s worth trying to think about what it is that makes social media destructive in a way that’s slightly different to all the other ways people can hurt one another.
(9) Defending these changes has spurred local government minister Brandon Lewis to new heights of claptrap.
(10) He went on: "His Thatcherite claptrap shows that this country has passed into the hands of an out-of-touch, unaccountable elite.
(11) It's reprehensible that he talks such claptrap about a policy that is divisive, illogical, illiberal, hypocritical and intended as Valium for the Tory shires hyperventilating over cohabitation with the Liberal-Democrats.
(12) He said: "We should not fall for the Tory claptrap that we left Britain broke and broken."
(13) But bad ideas do thrive in conditions of maximum claptrap.
(14) While most office holders probably don't believe the "reactionary and paranoid claptrap" they peddle, "they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base".
(15) More importantly these corporations, whether they're selling information or consumer goods, collude in a pervasive myth and toil to keep us uninformed on important matters such as the environment, economic inequality, and distracted by vapid celebrity claptrap.
(16) Don't look for consistency, either: MacMillan could veer between genius, excess and claptrap in a trice – and deciding which is which still divides opinion to this day.
(17) School architecture is just more highfalutin liberal claptrap, governors are " local worthies seeking a badge of status and the chance to waffle about faddy issues ", the national curriculum is a ball and chain, and teachers are part of a leftwing conspiracy.
Verbiage
Definition:
(n.) The use of many words without necessity, or with little sense; a superabundance of words; verbosity; wordiness.
Example Sentences:
(1) But cutting through the legal verbiage, it is possible to reduce them to eight main political sticking points: Timing As with any good meeting, much of the opening energy is likely to be expended on talks about talks.
(2) Now as the Obama administration uses the same verbiage as the Clinton administration used two decades ago, trade experts are alarmed at what is to come.
(3) The second group, ranging from Shakespeare in Love to The Ten Commandments to The Great Escape, rely on slightly more verbiage, and do not transmit as transparent a message as Die Hard or The Godfather, but still manage to convey a fairly good idea of what the picture is about.
(4) Jeter asks: “Why doesn’t he just shut up?” Rodriguez helped create a new phrase in Mets lore – “24 plus one” – which was the verbiage used by then Mets GM Steve Phillips to describe why the team had opted out of the Rodriguez free-agent sweepstakes in 2000.
(5) Eshun says that there were serious structural issues – that, in the exasperating management verbiage, there were too many "silos", each operating independently.
(6) Peres chided “Bibi” for “111 days of verbiage”, and held on as party chairman until Barak ousted him in 1997.
(7) Bill’s weary patter last night on the subjects of working families, and something something community-and-something-something-renewable-energy targets may be carefully constructed verbiage to target we-share-your-concerns to swinging voters, but Labor’s present strategy wholly avoids speaking to those that Labor crucially needs to deliver both an election win and a majority large enough to ensure space for policy implementation and future planning.
(8) There's a lot of verbiage around this issue – a lot of it by critics who don't seem to ever leave their offices, don't know what's happening in the field, don't really see it.
(9) This may not amount to satisfying the latter countries' UN security council aspirations but it was no mere verbiage either.
(10) It is the verbiage of un-reason and it leaves me cold.
(11) If Keaton is good at anything, it's this kind of circumlocutory verbiage.
(12) Like all patent applications, it consists of three coats of prime technical verbiage, and the devil is in the detail, but the essence of it is that in exchange for a monthly payment Facebook users will be able to get rid of ads and specify exactly what should replace them on their personal profiles.
(13) Who said there was already too much verbiage on the net?
(14) No amount of verbiage could disguise his failure to meet his own debt targets or the consequent disappointment of the divided Tory tribe.
(15) The connecting themes of modernity, social mobility and enabling governance were also themes of the outgoing administration, and its patchy record should warn Nick Clegg and David Cameron that use of such verbiage does not guarantee that anything will actually happen.
(16) Fitzgerald said the constitutional ban on using evidence obtained by torture in the Jordanian courts was little more than the "general verbiage to be found in any constitution or human rights instrument" and added little to the existing legal ban.