Example sentences of "can [not/n't] [conj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | In this climate , the academic in English and other subjects in the humanities , who is busy , who publishes a lot , who goes to conferences , can not but be preferred to the quiet scholar , who keeps a low profile , even seems rather idle , but is taking his time over a major piece of scholarly writing that may involve many years ' work and which he does not intend to give to the world until he is ready . |
| 2 | How men in high place , and authority Are in their lives and estimation wrong 'd By their subordinate Ministers ? yet such They can not but imploy ( iv . |
| 3 | They wrote : ‘ It is not often that a major British church seeks such an interview , and the conference and our 500,000 members and 1 million community can not but be offended . |
| 4 | Polarisation in Israel there certainly is , but if one applies the same broad definition of ‘ moderate ’ and ‘ extremist ’ to the Israelis as one does to the Palestinians , one can not but conclude that precisely the reverse situation prevails among them , that it is their Jibrils and Abu Musas — or religious fundamentalists in the Hamas mould — who hold sway . |
| 5 | The house is built on an ‘ L ’ shape , and though it evolved gradually over the fifteenth , sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , the whole gives a uniquely harmonious appearance , which must stem from the use all those years ago of essentially local materials which can not but blend . |
| 6 | Moreover if we wish to interpret ‘ consolations ’ in a rather more modern way we can not but admire the efficiency with which she took control of her own life . |
| 7 | We can not but desire truth and happiness , and are incapable of certainty or happiness . ’ |
| 8 | The official factory view is that you can not but as the vehicles have been out of production for thirty years , testing by the factory has not been carried out . |
| 9 | Such a search can not but be an ordeal , indeed a metamorphosis . |
| 10 | I can not but feel , though it may be an illusion induced by the delectable drug of understanding , that you must in some way share my eagerness that further conversation could be mutually profitable that we must meet . |
| 11 | You can not but admire their facile diligence ? |
| 12 | One can not but be struck by the Spanishness of Toledo Station or the Dutchness of Amsterdam or the clean , bold , heroic lines of Helsinki Central , with its guardian giants so redolent of the spirit of Norse saga . |
| 13 | And any improvements that they are able to bring to the overall situation can not but improve the availability of information potentially relevant to business activities . |
| 14 | Rome was set apart from her neighbours by her ancient fame and lasting prestige — and yet , in these centuries , one can not but think , far more by the presence of the apostles and martyrs , and of the pope . |
| 15 | So a historian who writes about ethnicity or nationalism can not but make a politically or ideologically explosive intervention . |
| 16 | Since our history books are still largely written from the liberal side we are amazed to find Wordsworth on the side of the aristocracy and against the rising hopes of the people ; as he himself put it : ‘ I can not but be of opinion that the feudal power yet surviving in England is eminently serviceable in counteracting the popular tendency to reform . ’ |
| 17 | The last child , Grace Beatrice , would not be born until the family had moved to 17 Brunswick Place , but once she had arrived we can not but notice an almost uncanny similarity between William 's family and that of his father : each consisted of four boys followed by a girl , with the third child dying in infancy . |
| 18 | Surrounded as we are by solutions of all kinds , each one supported by persuasive evidence of attested success , we can not but be tempted into the belief that somewhere among them there will be one which matches our particular teaching problem and which can therefore be slotted into our situation like a cassette or a computer programme . |
| 19 | One can not but help notice the presence of other cultures when they come into contact with one 's own , because their influences are all-pervasive . |
| 20 | ( whether it take the form of cynical passivity or dogmatic and manipulative activism ) can not but be destructive of a genuinely emancipatory praxis . |
| 21 | Is the concept of sensation involved in these sentences such that it makes sense to say that the same sensation is excited by the presence to our organs of numerous objects , or is it such that numerous objects ( and , indeed , the same object at different times ) can not but excite different , though possibly exactly similar sensations ? |
| 22 | However insignificant in myself I am the Representative on this question of no mean body in this country who would be … disappointed and chagrined at the suspension of the question — But further — and this is a consideration far more really influential on my Conduct — I can not but feel myself the Representative of a Body who can not speak for themselves and for whom I must act without other guide than my own Conscience . |
| 23 | It can not but contribute to the impression of providential suitability of an Eastern European pope . |
| 24 | His superiority over them can not but make them seem to us inferior , innocent , or naïve , dupes who trust too easily and are soon outwitted . |
| 25 | So long as we think that good must be identical with some one natural property we can not but suppose that all good things have some such property in common . |
| 26 | The abrupt cessation of his trading can not but have caused more or less severe dislocation until others were ready to take up the slack , just as Bath became ‘ somewhat decayed ’ after the deaths of three of its clothiers . |
| 27 | In the end it was overtaken by the advent of the ‘ New Draperies ’ , but the downward trend had set in well before the establishment of these in East Anglia ; indeed , in the event they came to replace the contracting broadcloth manufacture which , even as early as 1523 , had shown signs of instability : it was symptomatic of recession that no less than 35 per cent of Spring 's liquid assets had to be written off as irrecoverable , and the winding up of his affairs can not but have dealt its prosperity a mortal blow . |
| 28 | In oral cultures , he claims : ‘ The individual has little perception of the past except in terms of the present ; whereas an analysis of a literate society can not but enforce a more objective recognition of the distinction between what was and what is ’ ( 1968 , p. 34 ) ( my emphasis ) . |
| 29 | Despite the attempt to treat the Pythagorean example as an exception , it can not but weaken Goody 's case . |
| 30 | The relationship of literacy to these supposed changes from limited to more developed states is described in terms which implicitly tend towards determinism , despite explicit denials : literacy ‘ fosters ’ a ‘ spirit of enquiry ’ ( 1968 , p. 14 ) ; it ‘ can not but enforce ’ a more ‘ objective definition of what was and what is ’ ( ibid. p. 34 ) ; historical sensibility ‘ can hardly begin to operate without permanent written records ’ ( ibid. ) ; the existence of an elite group ‘ followed from the difficulty of the writing system ’ ( ibid. p. 37 ) ; ‘ logic ’ seemed to be ‘ a function of writing ’ ( 1977 , p. 11 ) etc . |