Of a Short Amusing Account

Of a short amusing account crossword clue. A two speed crossword question in Daily Telegraph Sydney on Friday, 23 June 2017. 9 letters.

Answer: ANECDOTES

An anecdote is a brief, revealing account of an individual person or an incident. Often humorous, anecdotes differ from jokes because their primary purpose is not simply to provoke laughter, but to reveal a truth more general than the brief tale itself, such as to characterize a person by delineating a specific quirk or trait, to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative. An anecdote is “a story with a point.”

Anecdotes may be real or fictional; the anecdotal digression is a common feature of literary works, and even oral anecdotes typically involve subtle exaggeration and dramatic shape designed to entertain the listener.[ However, an anecdote is always presented as the recounting of a real incident, involving actual persons and usually in an identifiable place. In the words of Jurgen Heine, they exhibit “a special realism” and “a claimed historical dimension.”