Example sentences of "[modal v] [adv] [adv] [vb infin] [vb pp] a " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | That I know we 're flogging a dead horse , but that half past ten , a phenomenal amount of time , it should never ever have taken a fraction of that if it had been done properly . |
| 2 | Having entered Royal Navy slang in this way the word could quite reasonably have been transferred from the specimen to the specimen collector , and , its origin forgotten , its vowels might equally reasonably have undergone a sea change making boffin out of buffon . |
| 3 | He 'd much rather have advised a disciple — the earnest girl Fruitbat , perhaps , or her relentlessly smiling lover , Chogyam-Jones , who dressed in what looked like a Chinese carpet ; their flattery was becoming necessary . |
| 4 | There was as well , similar but a whole step in advance , the why-dun-it , the book which depends for its interest on showing that someone who could easily enough have committed a certain murder but who on the face of it was incapable of that particular crime ( i.e. one who had J. C. Masterman 's aces of spades , hearts and diamonds but apparently not clubs ) is nevertheless seen eventually to be psychologically capable of that crime after all , once probed deeply enough . |
| 5 | But she told the boy his offences were so serious that had he been 15 , not 14 , he 'd almost certainly have received a custodial sentence . |
| 6 | Soon , however , a new controversy arose when it seemed to some zoologists and paleontologists that even the large dinosaurs could very well have had a high running speed , at least as high as an equivalent sized modern mammal . |
| 7 | As a penance , she became a hangman , although I would have thought she would more likely have become a candidate for hanging . |
| 8 | Natural selection would then gradually have produced a hardier group of individuals capable of remaining for longer in the remote mountain regions . |
| 9 | If Emerson had had the finance to develop a team properly , if his brother had been a better manager and if Emerson himself had not become frustrated as a driver by his car 's constant failures and retirements , if , in short , he had got his act together , he would quite possibly have made a first-class constructor and been hailed as a Brazilian Ferrari or Chapman . |
| 10 | Secondly , it enables us to take account of the knowledge that , as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said , had Saddam Hussein not allowed his greed to overcome his stealth by invading Kuwait last year , he would almost certainly have developed a nuclear weapon by the end of 1993 . |
| 11 | In a few days or weeks Francis would almost certainly have made a will and it was unlikely that Anna would have been the principal , let alone the sole beneficiary . |
| 12 | " Shoes would almost certainly have had a maker 's name on them , and such names on shoes are generally stamped in the leather and not easy to take out . |
| 13 | On his day Gerry was as good a centre-forward as any in the land and would almost certainly have won a string of Scottish International caps had he been with a more successful club . |
| 14 | If this had happened the rogue could not have conferred title upon the innocent purchaser ( unless under some other exception to the nemo dat principle ) for the rogue would no longer have had a voidable title . |
| 15 | It might not have prevented her feelings for him from developing as they had , but it would certainly not have caused a change in the atmosphere in this place , and he might have remained livable with . |