What does that word really mean? Find out before you use it.
So today I got an email from someone admonishing business owners not to use “platitudes” in our copy.
What she said was (I’m paraphrasing): “Many ads and websites say things like, “big selection, very professional, lowest prices, highest quality, fastest… These are called platitudes and they don’t mean anything to prospective buyers…In fact people expect those qualities from any business.”
Except for one thing. I wouldn’t call those sentences “platitudes.”
It bothered me the way some people get upset when they see a crooked picture on the wall.
The online Cambridge Dictionary defines platitude as “a remark or statement that may be true but is boring and has no meaning because it has been said so many times before.” And their example was, “ He doesn’t platitudes about it not mattering who scores as long as the team wins. “
So technically a statement like “We are the highest quality, lowest priced and most professional” could be considered a platitude. It’s boring and and has no meaningl
When I looked up examples of platitudes, I got : “It is what it is,” “Just be yourself,” “You can’t please everyone.” There’s also “everything happens for a reason.”
