I think I don't know much about the preposition 'of'.
"The five of us", "Five of us", and "Five all of us".
Would you please explain to me the difference between them?
Thank you.
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Sign up to join this communityI think I don't know much about the preposition 'of'.
"The five of us", "Five of us", and "Five all of us".
Would you please explain to me the difference between them?
Thank you.
"The five of us" implies that the "we" in question includes five people, and they are all being referred to.
"Five of us" implies that "we" are more than five people, of whom an unspecified five are being referred to.
"Five all of us" is not English.
You didn't ask about "all five of us", but: it's roughly synonymous with "the five of us", except that it emphasizes the all. Also, it generally refers to the five people as individuals; something like "All five of us already knew each other" is fine, but something like "All five of us make a great team!" is awkward at best.
You also didn't ask about "we five" and "us five", but: they're both synonymous with "the five of us". In theory, "we five" is used as a subject and "us five" as an object, but in practice, both are found both ways.
The five of us - this refers to some definite five out of many.
Five of us - this refers to just any five people out of many.
Five all of us is probably the incorrect version for All (the) five of us and refers to a group of five definite or non-definite people.
"I went to the bookstore to buy a book I read about and there were 4 more people there besides me and can you believe it all five of us bought the same book." - Some five people out of five. The speaker doesn't know the other 4.
"We were driving to the village when we saw a girl on the road. She was beautiful and needed help with fixing her car. We stopped and helped her very quickly since all the five of us were taking part in repairs." - Five out of five definite people (friends in my example). We know exactly that there were five people.
As Anton Sherwood commented the indefinite form (without the) may or may not imply party affiliation. In most cases I would say it doesn't.