Don't confuse
费话 with
废话 (fèihuà, 'nonsense / rubbish talk'). They sound identical and overlap heavily — CC-CEDICT lists
费话 as a variant of
废话. Subtle distinction:
费话 stresses the wasted effort of speaking (
费 = 'expend'),
废话 stresses the worthlessness of what was said (
废 = 'discard / useless'). In practice they're interchangeable in casual writing.
