Example sentences of "hardly [verb] [be] [vb pp] " in BNC.
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| 1 | Unlike the Joie de Vivre , which was intended to soothe and delight the eye , the Demoiselles can hardly have been calculated to please . |
| 2 | As was clear from the district initiative at Exminster the alternative strategy , a long-term programme of upgrading the asylum wards to modern standards , would hardly have been countenanced by the most avid , non-expert supporter of public spending . |
| 3 | Indeed normal conversation in their house was of such pitch and volume that a scream would hardly have been heard . |
| 4 | The following day it was revealed that Bering had chipped a bone in a knee during the race , but such was the power of his acceleration as he took up the running that he could hardly have been affected until the very final stages . |
| 5 | One can understand this , perhaps , in the fragmentary record of a rare and little-known group , but the Mesozoic brachiopods are now very thoroughly documented in every stage and the relations of these large and distinctive forms can hardly have been missed . |
| 6 | Yet signs are not wanting that the mental effort of doing so is one which will become more and more difficult as the memory of the distinct courts of Law and Equity dies out ; and perhaps already the unified jurisdiction of the High Court , and the statutes which have codified certain branches of Common Law and Equity , have produced some results which could hardly have been given by any combination of proceedings in the separate courts , or by the development of the law solely by means of cases decided in them . |
| 7 | However , thanks partly to the arrival of the sound film , this small measure was to change the nature of the British film industry in ways that could hardly have been foreseen by the legislators , and enable it to ‘ project England ’ more effectively than it had ever done before . |
| 8 | That a movement beginning as a breakaway group within Judaism should end by capturing the imperial palace could hardly have been foreseen by the Emperors Tiberius or Nero . |
| 9 | But this could hardly have been foreseen in 1880 . |
| 10 | ‘ L'Etat c'est moi ’ was a shrewd remark , but can hardly have been intended as a definition even in the France of the time . |
| 11 | It is generally agreed that Haydn was the father of the string quartet , and he set the highest standards : the quartets of Beethoven and Schubert could hardly have been written without his brilliant examples of how it should be done . |
| 12 | The design of the book , and the skill with which the illustrations were interpolated in the text could hardly have been improved . |
| 13 | Even his serve , which he does not really rate as a weapon , could hardly have been faulted . |
| 14 | Thiercelin liked him for the ‘ we ’ : Epitot personally could hardly have been faulted . |
| 15 | I recall no occasion of feeling ‘ physically better ’ , and that could hardly have been expected , rather a sense of a lantern lighting a gloom , or an astounding view unfolding . |
| 16 | In the 1970s they had been required to obtain land for future projects , and they could hardly have been expected ? sell at such severely-depressed prices . |
| 17 | The circumstances being what they were , Richard must have known I did not , but since he knew almost nothing about me except that I was willing , he could hardly have been expected to care . |
| 18 | His mission , in so far as it was to reconcile the Nationalists and Communists , was a failure and indeed could hardly have been expected to be otherwise . |
| 19 | It is sometimes said that in the light of the historical tension between Umayyad Damascus and Abbasid Baghdad , things could hardly have been expected to turn out otherwise . |
| 20 | Everyone 's environmental awareness was sharpened : ‘ Pollution free energy from fusion ’ was the cry ; if there was a time ripe for exploiting the story , Easter 1989 could hardly have been bettered . |
| 21 | If only there remained some sort of plan of the former layout ; but it could hardly have been anticipated when the conversion was begun that a modern miller would be the buyer , who proposed to grind not corn but electricity . |
| 22 | There are unlikely to be any Scottish Conservative Back Benchers either , not only because there are so few of them but because none of them has participated in this debate , apart from a brief intervention by the hon. and learned member for Perth and Kinross ( Sir N. Fairbairn ) that could hardly have been described as serious participation . |
| 23 | Vital as was the role of the prelates in Edward 's deposition — so delicate a novelty could hardly have been accomplished without them — their participation was more ceremonial than formative . |
| 24 | It can hardly have been removed or destroyed to prevent us learning about the fight between Middlemass and Lorrimer . |
| 25 | Salvarsan and later the sulphonamides could hardly have been invented without the bacteriological advances made between 1880 and 1910 , and bacterial test systems were essential for isolating pure penicillin from mould juice . |
| 26 | Wire fences are not something that wild elephants encounter every day , so this behaviour could hardly have been learned , still less inherited . |
| 27 | He had hardly feared being presented with the usual artistic creation swimming in a pool of sauce and accompanied by one or two undercooked carrots and mange-tout elegantly arranged on a side plate . |
| 28 | No traders were likely to come to the Hall that day or any other , and she could hardly risk being seen speaking to them even if they did . |
| 29 | At any rate at the beginning , there was a certain even-handedness towards France and the Vietminh coupled with resistance to France 's manifest intention that the US could hardly help being involved , one way or another , even though they professed neutrality . |