Are "said to me" and "told me" equivalent?

[Nonverbis]

"Say focuses on the words someone said and tell focuses more on the content or message of what someone said".
(https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/say-or-tell)

Do you feel this difference?


Are these expressions more or less equivalent?

And then she said to me that she was my cousin.
And then told me that she was my cousin.

 

[jutfrank]

Yes, of course we feel this difference. That is the difference, very basically speaking.

 

[Tdol]

But that doesn't mean that the answer to your question about equivalence is no.

 

[jutfrank]

Tdol's right—you'll have to explain what you mean by the vague "more or less equivalent" if you want a more useful answer to your question.

 

[Nonverbis]

Let's have another look at the sentences:
And then she said to me that she was my cousin.
And then told me that she was my cousin.

To me they are absolutely the same.

Said to smb.
Tell smb.

The difference is just 'to say' requires a prepositional indirect object whereas 'to tell' needs an indirect object without a preposition. But this is just a formality. Just a form rather than any change in the meaning of the sentence.

Let's return to the quotation from Cambridge:

"Say focuses on the words someone said and tell focuses more on the content or message of what someone said"

Frankly speaking this is just an abrakadabra for me. One case focuses on the words and another focuses on the their content.

But you say that you really feel the difference between say and tell when the addressee of the message is mentioned. By the way Cambridge doesn't mention an addressee in their example about 'to say'. Maybe that is the difference. Without the addressee 'to say' means just a fact of sayig. He said, and that is a fact. Whereas 'to tell' means that he conveyed a message to somebody known to the listener or reader. This is a bit another shade. But the only difference is that the addressee can't be omitted in case of 'to tell'.

Here is another article about 'to say' vs 'to tell':

tell verb - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com

Definition of tell verb in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.

www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com

Examples from Oxford:
The doctor told me (that) I had to stay in bed.
OR
The doctor said (that) I had to stay in bed.
NOT
The doctor said me to stay in bed.

As we can see Oxford admits to tell and to say. They seems to be equally reflect the situatuio.
'The doctor said me to stay in bed' is just grammatically incorrect.

'The doctor said to me to stay in bed' is grammatically correct if I'm not mistaken. In this case I can make a conclusion that everything is equal.

But Cambridge says that one case is for words and the other is for contents of the words. One is for contents. The other is for words. Rotate three - five times. Which one is for words?

 

[5jj]

Let's have another look at the sentences:
And then she said to me that she was my cousin.
And then she told me that she was my cousin.

To me they are absolutely the same.

They are not. Apart from anything else, the second is the natural way to express this; the first is not. That is because the second focuses on the message.

 

[5jj]

The doctor told me (that) I had to stay in bed.
OR
The doctor said (that) I had to stay in bed.
NOT
The doctor said me to stay in bed.

As we can see Oxford admits to tell and to say. They seems to be equally reflect the situation.

But they don't. The first focuses on the content/message, the second on the words. Note that the second does not even explicitly mention who the doctor said the words to.

 

[5jj]

'The doctor said to me to stay in bed' is grammatically correct if I'm not mistaken.

It's not very natural.

 

[Nonverbis]

I seem to start to understand.

'Said to smb' is not used in reported speech. Though grammatically correct, but just unnatural.

But in direct speech it is ok:

The doctor said to me, “Order the prescription at the chemist's”.

Have I understood you correctly?

 

[jutfrank]

But you say that you really feel the difference between say and tell when the addressee of the message is mentioned. By the way Cambridge doesn't mention an addressee in their example about 'to say'. Maybe that is the difference. Without the addressee 'to say' means just a fact of sayig. He said, and that is a fact. Whereas 'to tell' means that he conveyed a message to somebody known to the listener or reader. This is a bit another shade. But the only difference is that the addressee can't be omitted in case of 'to tell'.

Yes, that's more or less right. As Cambridge rightly says, the difference is that tell focuses on relating informational content. This is precisely why the verb tell uses an indirect object (in semantics this can be called the 'recipient' of the information). The verb tell doesn't make any sense without a recipient. The verb say doesn't have this semantic requirement since the focus is only on the production of words.