Although the substantive platitude is in common use, one almost never hears or reads its derived adjective platitudinous ‘characterized by platitudes; full of platitudes; (of a person) that utters or writes platitudes’ (Oxford English Dictionary Online). The latter is a very useful item to have in one’s active vocabulary, since so much of what passes for meaningful in modern life and thought is at bottom banal, flat, and patently platitudinous.
MICHAEL SHAPIRO
Leave a Reply