What's the difference between digression and ramble?

Digression


Definition:

  • (n.) The act of digressing or deviating, esp. from the main subject of a discourse; hence, a part of a discourse deviating from its main design or subject.
  • (n.) A turning aside from the right path; transgression; offense.
  • (n.) The elongation, or angular distance from the sun; -- said chiefly of the inferior planets.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) How World of Warcraft train future soldiers One odder digression sees the two discussing whether or not MMORPGs, video games like World of Warcraft, are evil.
  • (2) Bilaterals in summit seasons can be stiff exchanges, where digressions can carry risks: not enough said, too much said.
  • (3) Discrepancies increase when moderate digressions from the adopted implant system rules are allowed, such as could commonly occur clinically.
  • (4) Her only digression from a rather set, humdrum routine came when in 1975 she divorced her husband and then two years later remarried him.
  • (5) It's the first interview he's done since his marriage and divorce and the split-up of the Ordinary Boys, and it all comes rushing out in a spate, a tangle of chronological confusions and jokes, and groans when I quote some of his old interviews back at him, and statements of contrition, and digressions about Dawkins or whatever, and here's the confounding thing - he's really nothing like I was expecting, not indie-boy sulky, or attempting to play it cool, he's just talkative and engaging, and he has a sense of humour about himself that, from reading his previous interviews, I wouldn't have even guessed at.
  • (6) Despite that initial exposure to sports commentary, Healey took a digression into the music industry in the early 90s, as a tour manager for various "shoegazing" bands, before a chance break landed him in the US as an alt rock DJ and ultimately as the voice of New England Revolution, before ESPN came calling.
  • (7) The PPI is but the ratio G1 cells to total 2C cells (or G2 to 4C cells, when cells also digress from the post-replicative stage of the cycle).
  • (8) That is why its tempo is so explicit with slowness, syncopated with digression.
  • (9) The paper digresses on events leading to anachronistic acquisition of immortal growth by normally dependent cells as well as on the time and path dependent incidence of cancer, in vivo.
  • (10) Comprehensive evaluation of work conditions of workers of different occupational groups (bulldozer, excavator and boring machine operators, embroideresses) helped create a new parameter of occupation harmfulness evaluation: mean arithmetic value and root-mean-square digression.
  • (11) Eleven studies were found that did not contain obvious digressions from several methodologic assessment criteria (adapted from the McMaster guidelines for the evaluation of clinical trials).
  • (12) But I digress in precisely the sort of way you would expect from someone shaped by a lifetime's exposure to Attenborough programmes.
  • (13) Since his meander to China becomes a superb digression into the Anglo-Chinese opium wars, perhaps it doesn't matter that he made the train thing up.
  • (14) Hugo's form, predicated on length, on digression and detail, is a deliberate accretion of overlapping examples: his scenes are all variations on the same theme.
  • (15) We only go along with the book's violence because there are the safety valves of unreliability and chapter-long digressions about Whitney Houston .
  • (16) In vitro comparisons indicated that although neither instrument accurately recorded intraocular pressure (IOP), compared with manometric measurements, results of both instruments indicated linear digression from manometric IOP values that could readily be corrected, thereby accurately estimating IOP in horses.
  • (17) After a brief digression on the etiopathogenesis of carbon monoxide poisoning, the paper underlines the importance of the timely use of hyperbaric oxygen treatment not only to impede the immediate effects of CO, but also to reduce the incidence of neurological complications.
  • (18) In Sebald, Norfolk is never the focus but rather the beginning of a digression.
  • (19) diGRESS-tiGRESS, in which digress is a real word, and DIgress-Tigress, in which tigress is a real word).
  • (20) I speak from the brain but I also speak from the heart,” he said, rambling like a rich know-it-all uncle – “I’m bringing back the jobs from China!” – with brief digressions into self-pity: “Macy’s was very disloyal to me.

Ramble


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To walk, ride, or sail, from place to place, without any determinate object in view; to roam carelessly or irregularly; to rove; to wander; as, to ramble about the city; to ramble over the world.
  • (v. i.) To talk or write in a discursive, aimless way.
  • (v. i.) To extend or grow at random.
  • (n.) A going or moving from place to place without any determinate business or object; an excursion or stroll merely for recreation.
  • (n.) A bed of shale over the seam.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The persona that emerged during day two of Breivik's 10-week trial was a rambling, repetitive obsessive, fixated on a threat he never truly managed to articulate, but which involved "cultural Marxists", whom he claimed had destroyed Norway by using it as "a dumping ground for the surplus births of the third world".
  • (2) In it he translated Trump’s coarse ramblings into charming straight talk and came up with the phrase “truthful hyperbole”, which captures brilliantly an approach to business and politics in which everything is the greatest, the most beautiful.
  • (3) There is also Mario Draghi at the ECB, rambling on about quantitative easing , a policy that Berlin detests.
  • (4) His statements to the police were rambling and often incoherent.
  • (5) Millions of people are coming out to vote … People that have never voted before.” In a rambling speech, Trump also said he was “disgusted” with companies that are leaving the US, called for better care for veterans and insisted that Isis would be destroyed, although he referred to the San Bernardino attacks as having happened in “Los Angeles” before correcting himself.
  • (6) After eight hours of rallying, Kuti was dismissive of accepting anything short of a full governmental U-turn as he settled down to a spliff in his home, a rambling two-storey affair down a potholed road.
  • (7) This goal was actually obscured by the tangled web of Prince's rambling 1906 book and his other publications on the case.
  • (8) But he'd been doing a bit of holiday cover for daytime DJs, and he has a tendency to, as he puts it, "ramble on": he recently treated the nation to a nine-minute oration on the shortcomings of Madonna's gig at Hyde Park.
  • (9) The caricature of the older person as slow, rambling and confused is a familiar stereotype, reinforced by a media that often focuses on perceived age-related failings in public figures such as Ronald Reagan, Menzies Campbell and, more recently, Rupert Murdoch.
  • (10) There was how he was responsible for one of the most jaw-droppingly crazy moments in deposition history where he responded to the question "is this your handwriting" with a rambling, lurid riff more suitable for a Penthouse letter section than the courtroom.
  • (11) The oft-criticised Active People survey will be replaced with a new measurement tool called Active Lives that will also measure other forms of activity such as cycling to work, dance and rambling as well as activity among children from the age of five for the first time.
  • (12) Fun.” In a 20-minute speech, Palin praised Trump and expressed her desire to “Make America Great Again”, using the opportunity to go on a rambling and confused attack on both parties.
  • (13) I am happy to ramble on about the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, but veggie dogs are some real bullshit “But Madeleine,” you say, “hot dogs are disgusting!
  • (14) Donald Trump’s mad hatter ramblings are outside the conservative reform movement and we will continue onward to deny him the nomination.” Kasich did not compete in Indiana as a result of a pact with Cruz and has so far only won his home state of Ohio.
  • (15) He took us on a long-distance ramble through his landmark priorities.
  • (16) During the summer there are regular guided rambles around the traditional Highland estate (a mix of farmed croft land, wood and moorland) and from Plockton to Kyle of Lochalsh, but it's worth keeping an eye out for special events and themed walks throughout the year.
  • (17) A Trump spokesperson emphasized to the Guardian that the Republican frontrunner’s answer was solely in response to the “training camps”, which is a common far rightwing conspiracy theory and not the questioner’s rambling statement before that.
  • (18) In answers that ranged from terse monosyllables to rambling monologues, Cayne said he wished the Securities and Exchange Commission had looked into the way rumours about Bear were spread: "Regardless of whether there was a conspiracy or not, the bottom line is the firm came under attack."
  • (19) I loved the short ramble around, and then the perfect recipe within.
  • (20) The steady feed of rambling selfie videos have prompted widespread mockery and scorn and in some cases have clearly further distracted from the plight of Harney County ranchers whom the militia claim to be backing.