"'The Active Inquirer' is the present name, though when we supported Mr. Adams it was called 'The Active Enquirer,' with an E."
"A distinction without a difference; I like that," interrupted Captain Truck.

I said . . . I did not speak English at all—I only spoke American. He laughed, and said it was a distinction without a difference. I said no, the difference was not prodigious, but still it was considerable.

The fact that the sit-in convictions were under state rather than federal law, ruled last week's majority, is "a distinction without a difference."

"Obscene" is a higher standard than "indecent," although it seems like a distinction without a difference.

The Bush Administration attempted to distinguish the current case from Flast. . . . Judge Richard Posner, writing for the court of appeals, responded that this was a distinction without a difference. In the end, all money is appropriated by Congress.

[Attacking European Jews while claiming to avenge Palestinian deaths], of course, collapses the distinction between Israeli Jews and those from European countries, making a mockery of the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. For the terrorists, it is a distinction without a difference.

Distinction without a difference

Meaning

Noun