same old same old

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1. uncountableA familiar, uninteresting, or tedious situation, activity, narrative, or set of facts.

   "Yeah you were a kid last time I saw you. Heard you'd got flagged. What you doing now?" "Same old, same old," I reply.

   1970, George Cain, Blueschild Baby, McGraw-Hill, page 22

   4 more examples

   "People get so tired of hearing promises, promises and promises, and then when they get elected it's the same old, same old," Browning said.

   1990 November 3, Jennifer Orsi, “Incumbents”, in St. Petersburg Times, retrieved 07 Jan 2010, page 4A

   Most basically, this is the same old-same old — visionary artist struggles successfully to realize his particular vision, gets famous, gets laid, gets in trouble with the whole celebrity thing, tries to escape the demands of his exigent fans . . . ends up sort of beloved, sort of intact, but sort of unfulfilled, too.

   2007 November 21, Richard Schickel, “I'm Not There: Deconstructing Dylan”, in Time

   Pending future revelations, I'm going to assume that the present is like the past, and that this is more of the same old same-old.

   2011 June 8, Mark Liberman, “Speech-based lie detection in Russia”, in Language Log

   But it does make a cultural difference - and you need pioneers like Robin who recognise the benefit of doing that rather than perpetuating the same-old-same-old.

   2024 January 24, Dyan Perry talks to Nick Brodrick, “The industry has given me so much”, in RAIL, number 1001, page 42

   Synonyms: same old story, same old thing