Drearily commonplace and often predictable; trite: “Blunt language cannot hide a banal conception” (James Wolcott).
ETYMOLOGY:
French, from Old French, shared by tenants in a feudal jurisdiction, from ban, summons to military service, of Germanic origin. See bh-2 in Appendix I.
OTHER FORMS:
ba·nalize —VERB ba·nally —ADVERB
USAGE NOTE:
The pronunciation of banal is not settled among educated speakers of American English. Sixty years ago, H.W. Fowler recommended the pronunciation (bnl, rhyming with panel), but this pronunciation is now regarded as recondite by most Americans: it is preferred by only 2 percent of the Usage Panel. Other possibilities are (bnl, rhyming with anal), preferred by 38 percent of the Panel; (b-nl, rhyming with canal), preferred by 46 percent; and (b-nl, the last syllable rhyming with doll), preferred by 14 percent (this last pronunciation is more common in British English). Some Panelists admit to being so vexed by the problem that they tend to avoid the word in conversation. Speakers can perhaps take comfort in knowing that any one of the last three pronunciations will have the support of a substantial minority and that none of them is incorrect. When several pronunciations of a word are widely used, there is really no right or wrong one.
b
-n
l
, b
—VERB
l
