An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place. However, over time, modification in reuse may convert a particular anecdote to a fictional piece, one that is retold but is "too good to be true". Sometimes humorous, anecdotes are not jokes, because their primary purpose is not simply to evoke laughter, but to reveal a truth more general than the brief tale itself, or to delineate a character trait in such a light that it strikes in a flash of insight to its very essence. Novalis observed "Eine Anekdote ist eines historishes Element — eines historisches Molecule oder Epigramm". A brief monologue beginning "A man pops in a bar..." will be a joke. A brief monologue beginning "Once J. Edgar Hoover popped in a bar..." will be an anecdote. An anecdote thus is closer to the tradition of the parable than the patently invented fable with its animal characters and generic human figures— but it is distinct from the parable in the historical specificity which it claims.

The word anecdote (in Greek: "unpublished", literally "not given out") comes from Procopius of Caesarea, the biographer of Justinian I, who produced a work entitled Ἀνέκδοτα (Anekdota, variously translated as Unpublished Memoirs or Secret History), which is primarily a collection of short incidents from the private life of the Byzantine court. Gradually, the term anecdote came to be applied to any short tale utilized to emphasize or illustrate whatever point the author wished to make.

From Wikipedia under the GNU Free Documentation License
Sat Sep 4 17:39:38 2010

Finance Class Attracts Crowd At Day Room - Fort Smith Times Record
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Finance Class Attracts Crowd At Day Room

Fort Smith Times Record

... lecturing, she wears jeans to class and talks about real-life situations, often using personal anecdotes or play money to bring home a point. said. ...
New research suggests porn is overly demonized - CNET News
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New research suggests porn is overly demonized

CNET News

Writing about someone collecting anecdotes is not journalism. Even if you can get "porn" into the title to titillate. by joodi3k December 2, ...



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You thought your dad was a tough guy - Winnipeg Free Press
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You thought your dad was a tough guy

Winnipeg Free Press

The most striking impression gleaned from all of the personal anecdotes is the contradictory, opportunistic, illogical and utterly destructive nature of war ...



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From Google News Search: "anecdotes"
Sun Dec 13 15:04:46 2009

Fighting Engineers: Robots, Anecdotes , and Data Computing ...
computinged.wordpress.com
Fighting Engineers: Robots, Anecdotes , and Data Computing ...

Mark Guzdial

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:43:32 GM

Fighting Engineers: Robots, . Anecdotes. , and Data. February 26, 2010. Got into a fight yesterday with an engineer. We were both at an advisory board meeting for a new project here at Georgia Tech about teaching middle school science with ...

Light and Heat: Miscellanies 17: On Generalizing Anecdotes
mjaybennett.com
Light and Heat: Miscellanies 17: On Generalizing Anecdotes

M. Jay Bennett

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:24:00 GM

Have you ever noticed that generalizations​ based on . anecdotes. are often contradictory? Have you ever had two people give you advice based on their experience, both of which sounded plausible but were contradictory? I know you have. ...

The Dragon Syndrome
thortrains.net
The Dragon Syndrome

Administrator

hu, 11 Mar 2010 05:29:04 GM

Some years ago, I read a delightful book entitled The Hobbit. The story revolved around a tiny fellow known as a Hobbit. He had gone on a quest. In the story, he encountered a ferocious dragon named Smaug. This Dragon guarded a hoard ...

From Google Blog Search: "anecdotes"
Fri Mar 19 14:44:41 2010