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Phrase: Live to tell the tale
Live to tell the tale is a phrase that means to survive a dangerous or challenging situation and be able to talk about it afterward.
It implies the person who experienced the situation could overcome it with a story to tell.
I have two stories of times when I lived to tell the tale.
The first one happened when I was living, working and studying in Vancouver, Canada.
I was going to work early in the morning on a weekend and needed to go to the bank machine.
I opened the door, went inside and got my money.
When I tried to leave, the door wouldn’t open.
I was trapped inside a bank ATM.
I thought I’d be there until Monday, but a security guard eventually let me out.
I lived to tell the tale.
The second story happened when I was travelling in Australia.
I got off at the wrong train station in Sydney and ended up in a dangerous neighbourhood.
I walked around with a large backpack in a bad part of town.
Two scary-looking dudes started following me, and I knew I had to escape that situation.
I lost them in some side streets and doubled back to the station.
Once I was on the platform, they showed up again.
Just as they were stepping off the stairs, a train arrived, and I got on, but so did they.
It was late at night, so I went to the back of the train where the conductor was and sat where he could see me.
It was a scary experience, but I lived to tell the tale.
When going through a challenging experience, remember you can live to tell the tale, too.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 6th-grade education (age 11).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 81.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.