A tail is the part sticking out at the back — of an animal, a plane, a comet, a queue: "The dog thumped its tail against the door." A tale is a story: "She told us a long tale about the crossing." If you could replace the word with "story", you need tale.
The core difference
Two homophones with nothing in common but their sound. Tail is physical and always involves a back end or a trailing part. Tale is verbal and always involves something told.
Using "tail"
The literal sense extends easily into figures of speech, all of which keep the idea of the rear or the trailing part:
- The kitten chased its own tail.
- We were at the tail end of the queue.
- Sales tailed off in November.
- He turned tail and ran.
- Heads or tails?
- The police put a tail on him. (a follower)
Using "tale"
Tale nearly always appears with words about telling, and often carries a hint that the story may be embroidered:
- a fairy tale
- a cautionary tale
- a tall tale
- Don't tell tales. (don't inform on people, or don't lie)
- The survivors lived to tell the tale.
The memory trick
A tALE is something you tELL — both have the L before the end, and both are about words. A taIL has an I in it, like the animal it is stuck to has a spine. Or simply run the substitution test: swap in story. "She told a long story" works, so tale. "The dog wagged its story" does not, so tail.
The pairs people get wrong
Three fixed phrases account for most errors:
- an old wives' tale — a story, not a tail. This is the most frequently misspelled of the lot.
- telltale (one word) — a telltale sign gives the story away. Not "tell-tail".
- a tale of two cities — a story about them.
Going the other way, tail end, tailgate, tailback and tailwind all take the animal spelling, because they all refer to the back of something. And note that tailor is unrelated to both — it is simply spelled the same way for the first four letters.
One genuine grey area
Autocorrect will not save you here, since both spellings are valid words in every context. If you write quickly, it is worth searching a finished draft for both forms and checking each one against the substitution test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it "an old wives' tale" or "an old wives' tail"?
Tale. The phrase means a piece of traditional folklore or a story with no truth in it, so it takes the story spelling. Note the apostrophe goes after the s: wives'.
Is it "telltale sign" or "tell-tail sign"?
Telltale sign, written as one word. A telltale sign tells the tale — it reveals what happened. "Tell-tail" is not a word.
Which spelling for "the tail end of the year"?
Tail. You mean the last part of it, the back end — the same sense as an animal's tail.