Example sentences of "[noun] had [not/n't] [been] [adv] [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | But only yesterday one of his own batch had n't been so lucky , and it was when the news broke in the camp that he knew he could still feel emotion . |
| 2 | In a war-time article on Smollett he remarked that several writers had recently tried to ‘ revive the picaresque tradition ’ , instancing Waugh and Aldous Huxley — adding that the experiment had not been entirely happy , if only because they had betrayed a sense of strain in an effort to be shocking . |
| 3 | The same proportion thought that the feedback had not been very useful or of no use at all . |
| 4 | If her eyes had not been so bright and alert , she could have been mistaken for a corpse . |
| 5 | If Marie had n't been so desperate to escape from that room , she would n't have suggested taking Bella out in her wheelchair . |
| 6 | Moreover , his speeches had not been fundamentally concerned with ‘ Britain with the continent ’ , but with ‘ Britain and the continent ’ . |
| 7 | It was n't much of a place , and Toby had n't been particularly happy there . |
| 8 | Agatha had n't been unduly concerned . |
| 9 | It seemed all of her father 's old acquaintances had not been too impressed by his choice of wife . |
| 10 | I wanted to run away , and if that window had not been so high I believe I would have jumped through it . |
| 11 | Up to that time the maritime needs of the two countries had not been very demanding . |
| 12 | Black holes would have been formed only if the early universe had not been perfectly smooth and uniform , because only a small region that was denser than average could be compressed in this way to form a black hole . |
| 13 | This functional explanation seems to be more satisfactory than , and logically prior to , one based on prestige : as it happens , this individual 's activities away from home had not been upwardly mobile . |
| 14 | We paid over $50m for it , and that , for a small British company in those days going into a market where British companies had n't been notably successful , was seen as a very big commitment . |
| 15 | ‘ If the Countess of Anjou had not been so anxious to correct any false impressions we may have had about your arrival the negotiations might have dragged on indefinitely . |
| 16 | If England had not been so successful , then perhaps I would be moaning . |
| 17 | If the whole business had not been impossibly difficult , she wondered if she would have bothered at all . |
| 18 | For a while , there , he 'd as good as haunted the place in the late afternoons … but then the van had broken down and getting into town had n't been so easy , and besides the restaurant had become so damned busy that he 'd become just another face in an ever-changing crowd . |
| 19 | I daresay he might have appeared more cheerful if his responsibilities had not been so heavy . |
| 20 | The truth had not been too difficult to discover . |
| 21 | Looking back at that period , the crucial difference in Conservative politicians was between those who thought that the last twenty or thirty years had not been too bad , and who were sceptical that anything better could be achieved , and those who hoped that something better could be won and saw the last quarter of a century as a slow but steady decline . |
| 22 | Apparently the school dessert had n't been too popular with the children : the remains of the custard had been put out in a bin , and this had attracted that great opportunist , the starling . |
| 23 | Lilly had not been more beautiful than the other women who sought him , just more clever . |
| 24 | And some of the great families had n't been too happy about nomes being able to go where they pleased , without having to ask permission . |
| 25 | I just wish that Sam had n't been so generous with the wine , though . |
| 26 | Mervyn had visited the flat once for tea on a Sunday afternoon when her mother was still alive , but the occasion had not been very successful . |
| 27 | Read had not been particularly interested in my political book ( which I had submitted to him in fulfilment of the option clause in my contract with Routledge , so I got together some more representative pieces and sent them to Eliot , no least because he had published my article on ‘ Philosophy and Politics ’ in The Criterion , and because I had again spoken about my plans at our first meeting after the war . |
| 28 | Perhaps her behaviour on Sunday night had not been so foolish after all . |
| 29 | The Zeppelin attack left ten people dead in the city , and scores wounded : if the Germans ' bomb-aiming had not been so lousy , the toll could have included many of the sleeping deaf children in Donaldson 's . |
| 30 | If his father had n't been so bloody-minded and had let him use the family car , he would no doubt have gone down alone and come back next day , having called on some estate agent in Hadleigh or Sudbury and asked them to sell the house for him , the very one probably that he had gone to in the following year . |