[Grammar] part of the story

sumon. · Mar 30, 2012

Hello everyone,
"This is just a part of the story.". About 5,740,000 results (0.13 seconds)
"This is just part of the story." About 11,100,000 results (0.24 seconds)

part 1piece [countable] a piece or feature of something such as an object, area, event, or period of time

Which one is correct?

Thank you in advance!

emsr2d2 · Mar 30, 2012

sumon. said:
Hello everyone,
"This is just a part of the story.". About 5,740,000 results (0.13 seconds)
"This is just part of the story." About 11,100,000 results (0.24 seconds)

Which one is correct?

Thank you in advance!

I would use the second more often than the first. They are both correct, though.

sumon. · Mar 30, 2012

So rules of countable and uncountable nouns are not always important. It just depends on the usage. Am I right?

dansynek · Mar 30, 2012

sumon. said:
Hello everyone,
"This is just a part of the story.". About 5,740,000 results (0.13 seconds)
"This is just part of the story." About 11,100,000 results (0.24 seconds)

Which one is correct?

Thank you in advance!

As is already reported both are correct. Here is what the sentences convey to me.
(I am not a native speaker, so take my intuition with a (big) grain of salt!)

When I hear "just a part of the story" I get the sense of the story as a made up of pieces, perhaps represented as a written document or file and someone just handed in a piece (a part) of the story, perhaps a chapter. So it has a syntactic connotation. When I hear the sentence "just part of the story" I think of the story as a something with meaning and I just was told part of it, there is more to elaborate. So in the second case the rest of the story is more likely to be a rewritten more detailed version than in the first alternative.

Of course natural language does not have exact meaning. I would love to hear if a native speaker agrees with me, or if the sentences have exactly the same meaning for him/her.

SoothingDave · Mar 30, 2012

It's possible that "a part" could refer to, as you suggest, just a chapter. But I think the two phrases are used pretty much interchangeably.

BobSmith · Mar 30, 2012

dansynek said:
As is already reported both are correct. Here is what the sentences convey to me.
(I am not a native speaker, so take my intuition with a (big) grain of salt!)

When I hear "just a part of the story" I get the sense of the story as a made up of pieces, perhaps represented as a written document or file and someone just handed in a piece (a part) of the story, perhaps a chapter. So it has a syntactic connotation. When I hear the sentence "just part of the story" I think of the story as a something with meaning and I just was told part of it, there is more to elaborate. So in the second case the rest of the story is more likely to be a rewritten more detailed version than in the first alternative.

Of course natural language does not have exact meaning. I would love to hear if a native speaker agrees with me, or if the sentences have exactly the same meaning for him/her.

[AmE - not a teacher]

I would say that without any context, you're reading a little bit in to it

Without context, those both mean the same thing to me, and I prefer the latter version (just part of the story).

[Grammar] part of the story

sumon.

Member

emsr2d2

Moderator

sumon.

Member

dansynek

Member

SoothingDave

VIP Member

BobSmith

Senior Member

Similar threads