Example sentences of "can hardly [verb] [verb] " in BNC.
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| 1 | Minton 's irritation with Bacon found outlet in quips about ‘ Ferdie Ham ’ , and to David Tindle he on one occasion remarked : ‘ It 's no good you trying to do Francises , dear : he can hardly manage to do them himself . ’ |
| 2 | ‘ One can hardly appear wearing L-plates , but no-one stands up for their first performance of a great work saying : ‘ This is the definitive version . ’ |
| 3 | The reader will probably object that a hideous primal trauma of parricide and rape is all very well for purposes of explaining the subsequent guilt and neurotic inhibitions of the perpetrators of these ghastly crimes , but can hardly hope to explain how they succeeded in transmitting their new-found superegos to their children , and certainly will not explain how , when all the primal fathers were gone ( a process which may have taken a considerable period of time admittedly , but which must have happened eventually ) , when there were no more primal parricides to be procured , human societies could still construct their civilization on the acquisition of the superego . |
| 4 | To state the relevant causal circumstance , would we not have to do what we can hardly hope to do , which is to enumerate parts of much of the whole state of the universe at or during a time ? |
| 5 | Nevertheless one can hardly hope to discuss knowledge in a language any less metaphorical than Descartes ' ( I have myself a few paragraphs back analogized not only to seeing but to ‘ glimpsing ’ and being ‘ illuminated ’ by a ‘ flash ’ , not only to clarity but to drawing a ‘ clear line ’ ) . |
| 6 | They can hardly avoid suggesting death and life ; in that case his song says there can be no defeat — even if the wanderers die in the dark wood , the real Old Forest , they will in death break through to sunlight and out of a hampering shade . |
| 7 | I can hardly bear to write this down . |
| 8 | The pain in my left hand is such that I can hardly bear to look at it . |
| 9 | I can hardly bear to enter the room where it stands , he wrote . |
| 10 | If you think about it , as you were n't strong enough to respond on the first round , you can hardly want to redouble now to play . |
| 11 | Whereas we are encouraged to remember the pre-war years as the home of traditional discipline and common sense , we can hardly fail to notice the sympathy which reaches out to Hatton 's bad boys or to Butterworth 's hyperactive little terror — a sympathy , what is more , that nowadays would often be slapped down as a sentimental , modern , postwar ‘ permissive ’ fad . |
| 12 | To many this might seem a dry and rather dusty concern ; but those who have watched the progress of AD can hardly fail to ask if the person they once knew is still somehow trapped within the body and mind of the sufferer . |
| 13 | ‘ Your Majesty can hardly fail to read with amusement ’ , he wrote to the king , |
| 14 | When you follow the F-Plan menus you can hardly fail to increase daily dietary fibre intake considerably even if you do n't bother to count the grams . |
| 15 | The results can hardly fail to come out smoking . |
| 16 | The degree of selective pressure towards co-operation group awareness , and identification was so strong , and the period over which it operated was so extended ( at least three million years , and probably even longer ) , that it can hardly fail to have become embedded to some measure in our genetic makeup ( 1977 : 209 , emphasis ours ) . |
| 17 | And if England fail to qualify — the opening tie is against Norway at Wembley in October — then Taylor can hardly expect to continue . |
| 18 | At this early stage in getting to know Qbasic you can hardly expect to turn out a master work but to leave you with just Hello World until next month would be cruel . |
| 19 | The 1991 results are likely to be poor but , as the dominant UK credit insurer operating in the longest and deepest recession for many years , one can hardly expect to see good figures . |
| 20 | There is a certain doubt as to whether the universe is old enough for any Black Dwarfs to have been produced as yet , but eventually it must happen , and this will be the final fate of the Sun — though we will not be there to see ; the Earth can hardly expect to survive the Red Giant stage , when the Sun will radiate at least a hundred times as fiercely as it does at present . |
| 21 | The trouble is that things are not equal , and he can hardly remember placing a woman in such a job . |
| 22 | But urban guerrillas do n't kidnap distinguished foreigners only to keep their exploit secret , hijackers can hardly help becoming news on the instant , and here there has been profound silence . |
| 23 | The United States can hardly like helping General Avril , the Duvaliers ' heir . |
| 24 | Since Eleanor , at the age of thirty , had separated from a husband of her own age in order to marry a nineteen-year-old , Andrew 's audience can hardly have missed the irony , particularly if — as seems possible — the book was written at the French royal court . |
| 25 | Knowing what the Bushmen knew then — that the NEA was unpopular with conservative legislators and already the target of fundamentalist Christians for subsidising offensive art — they can hardly have seen this as a plum they could hand to a big contributor or a rising political star or , indeed , to anybody aiming to leave town alive . |
| 26 | All of this excitement — the meetings , the handbills , the brave volunteering — can hardly have escaped the notice of the Titford family down in Pig Street . |
| 27 | It can hardly have escaped your notice that the satellite television revolution is now well and truly upon us . |
| 28 | Over the last two years , however , it can hardly have escaped your notice that a new software application called desktop publishing has begun to appear on the scene . |
| 29 | The linkage of wisdom with power can hardly have escaped a student-prince . |
| 30 | Totalling fewer than twenty and confined to a minority of townships , they can hardly have represented more than a fraction of the real number of demises , most of which were likely to have been annual tenancies anyway . |