Example sentences of "can [adv] [verb] [been] [adj] [prep] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | ‘ I know that ca n't have been easy for you . ’ |
| 2 | ‘ It ca n't have been easy for her . |
| 3 | ‘ It ca n't have been easy for them either over the past week , not knowing who they 'd be playing . ’ |
| 4 | It ca n't have been easy at first . ’ |
| 5 | ‘ Well , if he was repairing the machinery , it ca n't have been safe in the first place , can it ? ’ |
| 6 | It can not have been easy for an ordinand or a curate to stand up to contemptuous persiflage about his religion from one of the ablest minds of the generation who happened to be his own brother . |
| 7 | It can not have been easy for his wife to have Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu as in-laws . ) |
| 8 | It can not have been easy for either of them . |
| 9 | It can not have been easy for a man in his fifties to start afresh as an instrument-maker in London . |
| 10 | The play was financed ( see Syll. 1078 ) by the young politician Pericles , who can not have been indifferent to its pro-Themistoklean content . |
| 11 | If Chlothild waited from the 490s until 523 the feud can not have been uppermost in her mind . |
| 12 | The wealth of other trades was on a much smaller scale , one that can not have been untypical of most provincial communities . |
| 13 | He can not have been unaware of the risk . |
| 14 | It may be that other disaffected Anglian elements also gave assistance and it would be surprising if no help had been forthcoming from the men of Powys , who can not have been unaffected by Aethelfrith 's victory at Chester and the recent warfare between the northern Angles and the king of Gwynedd . |
| 15 | The links between politics and patronage can not have been beneficial to the efficiency of the customs service as a revenue-collecting agency , for all too often strong political interests could secure an important post for a man with little or no experience who was placed over the head of men far better qualified than himself , and presumably resentful of their own failure to secure advancement . |
| 16 | The loss of their lands was a blow not just to episcopal prestige and income but also to episcopal management and the pastoral care of a diocese ; it can not have been reassuring to any bishop to see how often temporalities were at the risk of malicious accusation or expedient suspicion . |
| 17 | Carew 's bleak diagnosis can hardly have been uninfluenced by several decades of mounting concern at the impermanence of non-agricultural employment compared with the stability of farmers fully occupied tending their land , and men continuously employed as servants in husbandry engaged for a year at a time . |
| 18 | Given the size of the loans to Mr Parretti , Alexis Wolkenstein , the head of the bank 's international division , and Jean-Yves Haberer , the bank 's chairman , can hardly have been unaware of its growing involvement with him . |
| 19 | Lord Lawson , in a speech on Monday night , the timing of which can hardly have been welcome to the Government , called for stringent public expenditure cuts and immediate tax increases to a total of £6 billion . |
| 20 | Lord Lawson , in a speech on Monday night , the timing of which can hardly have been welcome to the Government , called for stringent public expenditure cuts and immediate tax increases to a total of £6 billion . |
| 21 | Whether or not the Communist Party leaders expected such a letter to have anything more than a propaganda appeal they can hardly have been surprised by the Labour Party reply on 27 January 1936 which rejected the application and outlined the history of relations between the two parties , particularly during the social fascist " period . |
| 22 | Their country can seldom have been free from the threat of sea-borne attack in the tenth and eleventh centuries , when piracy and coastal harrying were seemingly endemic . |