These words refer to sayings that express self-evident truths or oft-repeated assumptions. Truism is the most neutral of these: the truism about the fool and his money being soon parted. Often the word refers to statements widely regarded as true or accepted as fact: early navigators setting out to disprove the truism that the world was flat. Since it is needless to point out what is obvious, the word can also carry a critical tone: lectures that were a mere collection of truisms .

In the case of platitude and saw the tone is decidedly critical. Unlike truism , the statements referred to by these words need not be self-evident or even true; the words do suggest ideas that have been repeated so often as to be no longer vivid or meaningful. Platitude implies an attempt at wisdom that expresses, instead, a commonplace sententiousness: weather that made a mockery of the platitude about spring arriving with a rush; fathers who wish to be helpful concerning their sons’ problems but can only spout embarrassed platitudes to them. Saw , refers to any well-worn saying whose point may be wit rather than wisdom, but which has become pointless through repetition or misapplication: countering her saw about a penny earned by quoting the one about being penny-wise but pound-foolish.

Bromide is the most disparaging of all these words. It denotes a stereotyped, inane remark made as though it were an original idea or observation. Bromides are usually uttered by people who exhibit a lack of imagination and intellectual perception: the bromide that it’s not what you learn in school that counts but the friends you make there.