(n.) The quality or state of being flat, thin, or insipid; flat commonness; triteness; staleness of ideas of language.
(n.) A thought or remark which is flat, dull, trite, or weak; a truism; a commonplace.
Example Sentences:
(1) In any case, people had tired of combative rhetoric and wanted softer platitudes.
(2) It’s clear she lends a sympathetic ear to many reformist ideas; in London last year she said: “We must constantly renew Europe’s political shape so that it keeps up with the times.” Beyond the platitudes, Merkel is open to reforms to the internal market, to competitiveness, to the bureaucracy and even to some of the institutions.
(3) Mills said: "Young people are not going to settle for the political platitudes that were sold to the post-independence generation.
(4) She said no surprises about the election date should mean "no excuses", a clear barb at the conservative opposition leader, Tony Abbott, whom she has criticised as announcing "platitudes not policies" and giving few costings for his promises.
(5) The duke’s statements about business, which to our tin ears sound like simplistic platitudes of the first water, are in fact fantastically complex and prescient exercises of soft power without which our economy simply could not function.
(6) Of course, at the end of the day, though, what workers really need is pay, not platitudes.
(7) Don Berwick's report on patient safety in the NHS has been attacked for being "strong on platitudes" and lacking in clear instructions.
(8) Johnson is the master-builder of that image, deflecting every lie, every gaffe, dishonesty and U-turn with some self-deprecating metaphor: calling his feigned indecision “veering all over the place like a shopping trolley” was worth a world of worthy platitudes.
(9) She provides a strong contrast to her sanctimonious, humourless sister Mary, who spouts empty platitudes about acceptable female conduct.
(10) Time and time again Corbyn ducks saying things like that, preferring to shelter behind platitudes like “give peace a chance”.
(11) Humble and hard working” may be the standard response from footballers asked about their team-mates but with Gabriel it gets repeated so often and in a tone so convincing that it no longer sounds like a platitude.
(12) Such “we are all one world” platitudes infuriate those whose families and communities will bear the impact of any new migration, coming from those who have no intention of bearing it at all.
(13) By and large, however, Obama stuck to empty platitudes that no one could disagree with (“we need to ... protect our children’s information” and “I intend to protect a free and open internet”) rather than offering concrete new proposals.
(14) Please don't give me the "aunts are loved too" platitudes.
(15) Enough platitudes and excuses: here is the truth about this week of sexism Read more But you don’t just tell people to respect women, you show that you respect women.
(16) You know if you've read Capital or if you've got the Cliff Notes , you know that his imaginings of how classical Marxism – of how his logic would work when applied – kind of devolve into such nonsense as the withering away of the state and platitudes like that.
(17) Now we're onto the junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, who is spouting equally meaningless platitudes.
(18) "We need everybody to remember how we felt 100 days ago and to make sure that what we said was not just a bunch of platitudes.
(19) I’m not interested in platitudes or buzzwords like “anti-austerity” or “aspiration”.
(20) Malcolm Turnbull refuses to denounce Trump's travel ban Read more Facebook Twitter Pinterest Turnbull: ‘When I have frank advice to give an American president, I give it privately’ This is not the time for the Australian government to offer mealy-mouthed platitudes about not commenting on the policies of other countries.
Shibboleth
Definition:
(n.) A word which was made the criterion by which to distinguish the Ephraimites from the Gileadites. The Ephraimites, not being able to pronounce sh, called the word sibboleth. See Judges xii.
(n.) Also in an extended sense.
(n.) Hence, the criterion, test, or watchword of a party; a party cry or pet phrase.
Example Sentences:
(1) If the former foreign secretary does narrowly win after all, he will take over a party where the ground has shifted decisively against New Labour shibboleths, where his rivals now command powerful constituencies and where the battle over cuts will shape the political agenda.
(2) One camp might allege Islamophobia while the other makes reference to extremism and radicalisation, and claims that the great shibboleths of diversity and multiculturalism excuse no end of sins.
(3) They make a shibboleth of a single tax rate and allow symbolism to trump real reform.
(4) Trump ends California swing marked by bold remarks, criticism and violence Read more “So tonight,” he said, “to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support.” Nixon had created a cultural shibboleth: the silent majority , the conservative masses, appalled at the cultural and political advances of the 1960s, ready to reel them back in.
(5) But as one New Labour shibboleth after another, from nationalisation to higher taxes on the rich, has fallen under the pressure of the crisis, it has certainly underlined the price of the corporate embrace that has been its lodestar from its inception (and the Conservatives', naturally, long before that).
(6) Labour, he says, is in danger of turning high marginal tax rates, a large state, and "snapshots of income inequality" into shibboleths.
(7) The shibboleths would indeed be disregarded and, by 2002, the not much better Network Rail had replaced Railtrack.
(8) Huhne was making enemies by his willingness to challenge Tory shibboleths in public and in his confident, abrasive way.
(9) Essentially, her committee was saying, by 1998, what a subsequent transport minister, Stephen Byers, would be admitting in 2001, that Railtrack was no good, that partial renationalisation at least was a very strong option and that shibboleths should be disregarded.
(10) They will also have to work out where they sit in a new political system that will take shape free of no end of shibboleths – not least the 20th-century assumption that the centre-left should be led by Labour.
(11) But what he called "the fight against bad English" is too often understood, thanks to the perversities of his own example, as a philistine and joyless campaign in favour of that shibboleth of dull pedants "plain English".
(12) He dumped liberal shibboleths to cast himself as pro-business and -trade, tough on crime and welfare.
(13) Entire papers, conferences, consultancies and even startup businesses, can be spun out of those shibboleths.
(14) Yet inegalitarian shibboleths such as balanced budgets and corporate tax relief will be retained.
(15) It is a classic example of old progressive myopia, making a shibboleth of one aspect of the tax system rather than looking at it in the round.
(16) Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Shibboleth’, by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo.
(17) It will be stripped of "liberal shibboleths" – all that namby-pamby stuff about children expressing their creativity, presumably – in favour of no-nonsense drilling in literacy and numeracy, lots of sport and "martial values" of self-discipline and respect.
(18) For reasons that remain obscure the rejection of climate science has become a shibboleth for rightwing culture warriors, whose views drive not only Abbott himself, but the majority of his backbench.
(19) America Magazine and the Tablet : America Magazine, published by the Catholic Jesuit order, has already begun reporting on moves to resist immigration raids, and regularly features opinion contrasting the teachings of Pope Francis with the shibboleths of American conservatism.
(20) A mere tax "shibboleth", he said, at a time when real reform would focus on taxing unearned wealth and pollution.