What's the difference between anecdote and tale?

Anecdote


Definition:

  • (n.) Unpublished narratives.
  • (n.) A particular or detached incident or fact of an interesting nature; a biographical incident or fragment; a single passage of private life.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) (4) Electrical stimulation by cutaneous devices or implants can give much benefit to some patients in whom other methods have failed and there are indications, not only from anecdote and clinical impression but also now from experimental physiology, that it may benefit by mechanisms of interaction at the first sensory synapse.
  • (2) Armed with this knowledge, the practitioner treating a breakdown injury can work to a solution based on scientific understanding rather than anecdotal information.
  • (3) So it’s not that we haven’t seen the progress we’d hoped for – in some places it really is that there are no services to be had.” Official as well as anecdotal feedback illustrates how serious the situation is, he says.
  • (4) Historically, this has been an area of conflicting and often anecdotal reports, and there are still significant gaps in our knowledge of the effects of temperature on tumor-host interactions.
  • (5) Three of the anecdotes around which David Cameron built his case in the debate became the subject of questioning and raised eyebrows, as reporters, bloggers and Twitter users launched their own factchecking operations.
  • (6) The current psychiatric literature is anecdotal and mostly restricted to discussion of psychiatric issues related to the BMT hospitalization itself.
  • (7) It added: "While the voluntary code for remuneration consultants specifies that they should not cross-sell services, anecdotal evidence and interviewees the High Pay Commission met during this research suggest this practice is widespread."
  • (8) Whereas a film documentary might piece together the sweatshop story through footage and anecdote, the game allows players to experience the system from the inside with all its cat's cradle of pressures and temptations.
  • (9) IIRR has also used humorous anecdotes and parables as educational devices.
  • (10) We are not going to change the system based on one man's anecdotes."
  • (11) New therapeutic approaches to immune thrombocytopenia during pregnancy appear to be possible and can be applied when there is a risk to the fetus, they are still either experimental or anecdotal and there is a real need for a well-designed clinical trial.
  • (12) The point of my anecdote is not to compare success bred by 2 very different education systems, but to say that in my experience children develop at different rates, and that any tests done on my son aged 5 would have had no prefictive value whatsoever.
  • (13) Although the existing outcome data are insufficient, there is a large array of possible treatment options and facilities; the clinician should attempt to match the patient with the program based on relevant clinical and anecdotal information.
  • (14) I get the feeling something's missing from this anecdote.
  • (15) Cable said: "There has been anecdotal evidence of abuse by certain employers, including in the public sector, of some vulnerable workers at the margins of the labour market."
  • (16) Few figures exist but anecdotally, online fundraising is being embraced by the majority for whom at least a "donate" button exists, says Cath Lee, chief executive of the Small Charities Coalition .
  • (17) There's no obvious way to lead into this anecdote, so I'll just come out with it: a nurse on one of the postnatal wards in our local hospital told my wife that her (my wife's) nipples might be "too flat" to breastfeed.
  • (18) Although, as yet, there is no specific treatment of epidermolysis bullosa (EB) simplex, anecdotal reports suggest the possible efficacy of one of the newer topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents, bufexamac.
  • (19) The rationale for recommendation of bed rest is largely anecdotal and is supported by almost all experienced angiographers responding to our questionnaire.
  • (20) On the return journey, the tired passengers exchange smuggling anecdotes and safety tips.

Tale


Definition:

  • (n.) See Tael.
  • (v. i.) That which is told; an oral relation or recital; any rehearsal of what has occured; narrative; discourse; statement; history; story.
  • (v. i.) A number told or counted off; a reckoning by count; an enumeration; a count, in distinction from measure or weight; a number reckoned or stated.
  • (v. i.) A count or declaration.
  • (v. i.) To tell stories.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) There were soon tales of claimants dying after having had money withdrawn, but the real administrative problem was the explosion of appeals, which very often succeeded because many medical problems were being routinely ignored at the earlier stage.
  • (2) Her story is an incredible tale of triumph over tragedy: a tormented childhood during China's Cultural Revolution, detention and forced exile after exposing female infanticide – then glittering success as the head of a major US technology firm.
  • (3) Such tales of publicly subsidised private profits very much fit with the wider picture of relations between the City and the nation.
  • (4) The curiously double nature of the virgin in this tale, her purity versus her duplicity, seems unquestionably related to the infantile split mother, as elucidated by Klein--a connection explored in an earlier paper.
  • (5) Mr Bae stars in a popular drama, Winter Sonata, a tale of rekindled puppy love that has left many Japanese women hankering for an age when their own men were as sensitive and attentive as the Korean actor.
  • (6) The fairytales – which have been distributed by leaflet to universities around Singapore – include versions of Cinderella, the Three Little Pigs, Rapunzel and Snow White, each involving a reworked tale that relates to fertility, sex or marriage, and a resulting moral.
  • (7) Tales invites you to be straight or gay or a bit of both, or even a 93-year-old transsexual.
  • (8) The disappointing weather at Easter left beaches deserted but some Britons, who were determined to enjoy the outdoors this time round, have already had their plans thwarted by the weather, taking to websites such as ukcampsite.co.uk to swap tales of woe, such as farmers calling to cancel bookings because sites were waterlogged.
  • (9) He says there are many optimistic tales to tell – migrant families, he says, are helping to drive up standards in local schools – but such stories tend to get lost in an online world that has precious little interest in them.
  • (10) "We truly are living through a tale of two Britains; while those at the top of the tree may be benefiting from the green shoots of economic recovery, life on the ground for the poorest is getting tougher."
  • (11) We're not just disembodied wombs in jars, like in Tales of the Unexpected.
  • (12) He spent his day with children who could not speak or hear, and so I could hardly expect him to bring home any interesting tales.
  • (13) What goes on in The Handmaid’s Tale [the overthrow of the US government by a theocratic dictatorship that suppresses the rights of women] is actually confined to what used to be the United States.
  • (14) When Japan was finally opened to western influence by Commodore Perry in 1854, Shakespeare's works – via Lamb's Tales – followed closely behind.
  • (15) Today Savina said she did not think her experience was a cautionary tale for journalists working on the Lebedev-owned Evening Standard, who might be anxious about their jobs.
  • (16) Mood Indigo (18 July) Arguably the most French movie ever made, Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou are quite adorable as fairy tale lovers in Michel Gondry's adaptation of Boris Vian's Froth on the Daydream.
  • (17) McQueen told this tale several times – the words varied from “McQueen was here” to more profane messages, between tellings – and so, years later, Anderson & Sheppard asked the prince’s valet for the suits of that era back, in order to examine the linings.
  • (18) No true evangelical ought to be tempted to give such tales any credence whatsoever, no matter how popular they become,” Johnson wrote.
  • (19) Photograph: Getty So that was the grand import of the producer’s vision, realised on an unprecedented scale and to eventual rightful acclaim: despite Gagarin and the rest, Americans in particular (and then Australia, and Britain) became transfixed by all the unfolding tales and testimonies.
  • (20) Unlike a similar tale across Stanley Park recently, when Kevin Mirallas ousted Leighton Baines and missed from the spot, Balotelli coolly sent Cenk Gonen the wrong way and Liverpool were reprieved.