one’s life story—the account of the career of a person:
- I must have given her my complete life story and virtually tons of shoptalk about my job.
Note: The expression does not fully correlate in meaning with the phrase life history—
1. = one’s life story:
- He then started talking to her and she cut him dead saying “I don’t want to hear your life history, pal!”
2. (biol.) the life-cycle of an organism:
- We were able in the course of four years’ steady work to complete the life history of six distinct forms.
story of one’s life—
1. = one’s life story:
- He was a big mouth. He picked up strangers … and told them the story of his life.
2. smth. that supposedly summarizes one’s unfortunate life experience:
- This is a story of my life, a struggle to find the truth, a person, who now in his mid-thirties feels, and seems to be treated as a criminal.
Note: The expression is not equivalent in meaning to the phrase hard-luck story—
1. a narrative of a person’s misfortunes:
- From this beginning unfolds a brilliant tale of human failings and misery. This is not simply another hard-luck story.
2. an invented story of one’s bad luck told in order to gain help or money:
- Conmen often have a hard luck story to tell, but they tell it with charm and humor, they seem unconcerned about you helping them or not.