A bland sauce is mild and tasteless. A bland vocabulary lacks flavorful descriptors such as insipid! Insipid means without distinctive, interesting, or stimulating qualities, as in the case of remarks that are uninspired and flat, or song lyrics that are so clichéd they are utterly dull. Neither of these terms is used as a compliment, generally speaking, but insipid is the more pointed of the two, connoting at times a shallowness or lack of mental rigor.

To allude is to refer to something indirectly. It is a way of pointing toward something or calling it to mind without explicitly naming it. A pop singer might allude to events in their personal life through abstracted lyrics. Allusions, or references to earlier artistic works, are very common in literature, as in the case of a book title (Brave New World by Aldous Huxley) that borrows language from another work (The Tempest by William Shakespeare).

The adjectives ridiculous and preposterous both describe things that are inconsistent with reason or common sense. True to its root, however, ridiculous implies ridicule or contempt. Preposterous emphasizes foolishness and suggests a topsy-turvy, inverted, or disorderly quality. A preposterous notion or idea, for instance, is so jumbled in its reasoning or so contrary to expected order that it is downright disorienting.