Example sentences of "[be] while [v-ing] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | He aptly compares him to Edmund Wilson , as a stylist , and one feels Orwell 's formula could easily have been returned : about as good a writer as one can be while holding untenable opinions . |
| 2 | But Connon remained as cool and unmoved as he had been while listening to Hurst . |
| 3 | Cars , of course , are also offered for comparative testing but there is usually no question of the tester -keeping the car at the end of the trial period , whereas the vacuum cleaner would not really be worth the manufacturer 's while collecting . |
| 4 | Finally , the high turnover at the polls might be indicative of changes in the local population , or prudential calculations amongst particular electors as to whether it was worth one 's while trying to exercise one 's right to vote ( on the logic that people will not bother to turn up to the poll if they believe their preferred candidates have no chance of success ) ; it could equally well be indicative of various forms of electoral manipulation and influence , such as the artificial creation of new electors , the ability of returning officers to prevent one side 's supporters from polling , or the ability of some members of the local elite to " persuade " electors not to register a vote in opposition to their wishes . |
| 5 | Citizenship presumably had certain advantages which made it worth a man 's while taking it up , but in a period of increasing civic oligarchy one may wonder how greatly these outweighed the disadvantages . |
| 6 | It was while reading an article about frozen food packaging equipped with a warning patch which changed colour as the food melted , that Wotherspoon made the connection which lies at the root of all great inventions : why not a climbing rope which changed colour after it had been stressed ? |
| 7 | It was while touring the United States with Fred Karno [ q.v. ] in 1912 that he tried his luck on American vaudeville , principally in a duo with his common-law wife , Mae Dahlberg , who suggested his stage name , Laurel , although he did not adopt it legally until 1934 . |
| 8 | In 1469 , King Louis XI of France conferred with King Henry IV of Castile here ; in 1526 the captive King Francis I was exchanged for his two sons , who stood in for him as hostages with his great enemy , the Emperor Charles V ; in 1659 , the Peace of the Pyrenees between France and Spain was negotiated on the island ; and a year later , the contract of marriage was signed which consolidated that epoch-making treaty , between Louis XIV and the Infant a ( it was while helping to decorate the Spanish pavilion for the occasion that the painter Velázquez is said to have caught his death of cold ) . |
| 9 | It was while exploring this river some distance upstream from Dale End that Jenny came upon stepping-stones stretching across it from bank to bank . |
| 10 | It was while teaching a form called ‘ the sink ’ — the exam failures and the less bright — that he came to that perception which all good teachers share : to inspire pupils you have first to gain their attention and one of the best ways of doing that is through humour and anecdote . |
| 11 | In this I may be vulnerable , for I was on the lookout for miracles and it was while watching Nancy , listening to her and eventually breaking my own icy shield and talking to her , that I came close to seeing what I was looking for . |
| 12 | Perhaps it was while watching the faces , that I began to get a mirror of my own doubts . |
| 13 | After the death of Brunel in 1859 he was promoted engineer-in-chief , and it was while working on the ferry piers in 1862–3 that the idea of the Severn railway tunnel came into his mind . |
| 14 | Apparently , it was while climbing D.P. that he spotted a new line on the buttress , but decided to wait a while and link it with another new route he had in mind for the Central Pillar of Freney . |
| 15 | For it was while changing trains at Reading Station that T. E. Lawrence lost the original manuscript of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom . |
| 16 | It was while waiting for a train on Uxbridge Station that the sight of a poster for the Tower Furnishing Company inspired W. S. Gilbert to write The Yeomen of the Guard . |
| 17 | It was while filming Ensign Pulver that he received news that June , the sister who was really his mother , had cancer . |
| 18 | It was while filming at this den that I heard of yet another place , only a few miles up the Wye , where mink had been seen killing mallard chicks . |
| 19 | Gerard confined himself to documentaries and it was while making a 90-minute update on South Africa , Back On The Frontier , for ITV in 1986 , that he became fired up to press ahead again single-mindedly with the feature . |
| 20 | It was while travelling around the world for the UN that she first became impressed with the simple forms of cosmetics made from natural ingredients used by remote communities . |
| 21 | It was while travelling around the world that the seeds of her future calling were first sown . |
| 22 | It was while travelling through Goa in December 1990 , that Nick Brown began a living nightmare . |