Example sentences of "[adj] had [pers pn] [adv] [been] for " in BNC.

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1 All might still have been well had it not been for yet another unfortunate circumstance .
2 This would have effectively made Toraja religion illegal had it not been for a young Toraja " slave " who had studied law while attending to the needs of his lord at university .
3 This sort of nonsense could have been fairly innocuous had it not been for the fact that under Napoleon I , the frequent employment of courtiers in great and influential offices of state had led to a gradual isolation of the Emperor , which in turn gave too much power to those close to the throne , many of whom , it should be noted , actively worked against him in the last years of the reign .
4 This openness and variation in level of the track , now giving views over a mile or so of green tree-crowns , now limiting the sky and showing on every side a steeply climbing hillside of columns , would have made their walking pleasant had it not been for the unseasonable heat of the day .
5 Kersey would have written him off as harmless had it not been for his extreme wariness .
6 His large eyes might have been girlish had it not been for his unusually heavy eyebrows .
7 This in itself would hardly have been significant had it not been for a wider transformation of the adult male working class .
8 It might even have been handsome had it not been for the dark scowl that currently shadowed it .
9 He would have been handsome had it not been for the close-set eyes and the petulant cast to his mouth .
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