Example sentences of "it [be] a [noun] [prep] [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | Had it been a figment of imagination , brought about with the increasing gloom , and the aura of the surrounding dereliction ? |
| 2 | ( Had it been an excess of antiquarks , however , we would simply have named antiquarks quarks , and quarks antiquarks . ) |
| 3 | Behind it are a couple of clapboard cabins , their windows gone and their planks left to loosen in a wind that never quite dies . |
| 4 | Would not it be a recipe for disaster in the offshore oil industry , in agriculture and in the hotel and catering industry ? |
| 5 | Would it be a time of wonder , or would it be the old conflicts continued ? |
| 6 | It was not a book that he had packed when leaving London : he had bought it a day or two earlier in Inverness , and to Boswell , years later , he gave , not unmemorably , his reasons for buying it at all : ‘ Why , Sir , if you are to have but one book with you upon a journey , let it be a book of science . |
| 7 | Would not it be a disaster for business throughout the country suddenly to be confronted by a long list of new regulations and constraints ? |
| 8 | Need it be a matter of wonder , when we see her capable of such restraint in general , that she should retire within herself and exercise that control we find her continually exerting over all her thoughts and actions the more energetically at a time when she is taught that a stray thought of desire would be impurity and its fruition pollution . |
| 9 | Two questions you will constantly be asked are : What can be done with the old wreck ? and What will it cost and wo n't it be a waste of taxpayers ' money ? |
| 10 | How would it be a waste of time ? |
| 11 | If a Member on one side of the House sought to simulate anger by crossing the floor , punching an opponent on the nose and destroying his paper , would it be a breach of privilege for a court of law to proceed against him ? |
| 12 | Adam 's cut-off jeans with the fringed hems , she meant , and his yellow and red headband that he insisted on calling a fillet as if it were a bit of fish . |
| 13 | One of the things that particularly amused him was that Hilary had pushed a red handkerchief into his sleeve as if it were a sign of breeding and distinction . |
| 14 | On it were a variety of jugs and china vases from the same school of design as the pixie doorknocker . |
| 15 | The reporter picked up his empty lager can and contemplated it as if it were a work of art . |
| 16 | It were a kind of metal cylinder . |
| 17 | For , as far as English rugby is concerned , these are the days of miracles and wonders , the days when England can turn out the finest team ever and cavort through the Five Nations championship as if it were a lap of honour . |
| 18 | ‘ Not necessarily the same person … unless it were a friend of Charlie 's . |
| 19 | Since opinion is now deeply divided on so many issues , one can probably no longer talk of the constitutional order as if it were a reflection of public opinion . |
| 20 | That is to say , you can not describe sixteenth-century English as if it were a variant of RP any more than you can do this for divergent present-day varieties . |
| 21 | She bought textbooks , studied in bed at dawn , and went every night to evening classes given by a frockcoated seer who spoke about calculus as though it were a way of life . |
| 22 | ‘ To study it as though it were a problem of engineering . |
| 23 | To a large extent , Bolinger 's division between those adjectives that qualify referents and those that qualify sense is presented as if it were a classification of adjectives as word types , that is , as one might find them categorized in the dictionary , thereby giving an impression that Bolinger might regard this almost as a lexical division , similar to that dividing adjectives that can qualify animates from the rest . |
| 24 | But , or because same thing like it were a couple of years ago , with finances . |
| 25 | IF ONLY it were a battle of flags . |
| 26 | The book read as though it were a collection of notes rather than a single document . |
| 27 | I asked , trying not to sound as if it were a matter of life and death . |
| 28 | He used to use the word ‘ bloodbath ’ as if it were a form of baptism . ’ |
| 29 | The second method tries to analyse the structure of the fossil almost as if it were a piece of engineering . |
| 30 | The fact is , however , that some of the behaviour of electromagnetic radiation is best explained as if it were a stream of photons ; and some of the properties are best explained as if it consisted of a series of waves . |