Banal

Boringly commonplace and predictable. Trite and obvious.A ban once meant a widely proclaimed order, originating in the Indo-European bha, "speak." Marriage banns, proclaiming a couple's engagement, are still publicly posted by some Christian churches. A French boulin ? ban or four ? ban was a mill or an oven which the lord of the manor provided for his tenants to use in common in return for a share of the output. To the French, and then the English, banal came from this idea of the common or usual.(pr. bə-NAL, BAY-nəl)Quote: "Art is no longer anything more than a kind of meta-language for banality." Jean Baudrillard (1929-), French semiologist. See semiotics.Also see clich? and kitsch.