Example sentences of "could [adv] [verb] [be] [art] [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | Our respective manners proved so widely different , that it would have been quite presumptuous in me to do anything but separate from an undertaking upon which I could only have been a clog . ’ |
| 2 | And so it was that she died alone in a mental hospital — as Eliot told Violet Schiff , one of the few who had known them both from their earliest days together , death could only have been a deliverance for her . |
| 3 | Rune muttered what could only have been a string of invective in his own language as he released his hold on her . |
| 4 | Just before ten o'clock , in the stillness of the night , I heard the noise of a motor car : it could only have been the doctor 's . |
| 5 | ‘ But ‘ little ’ could just have been a term of endearment . |
| 6 | Liverpool 's tactical and technical limitations were exposed by the newly-crowned Russian champions , and while it is easy to be wise after the event , Rosenthal could just have been the man to produce that little something out of the ordinary if he had been used from the start against Spartak . |
| 7 | He could easily have been a character in a Thomas Mann novel — the great remote maestro venturing down from The Magic Mountain to talk to a visiting writer . |
| 8 | Thaxted church was built in about 1340 and the finishing touches were made in the 1550s ; with its magnificent structure it could easily have been the cathedral of north-west Essex if one had ever been needed . |
| 9 | The flash could easily have been the moonlight catching a wavetop on one of the larger pools . |
| 10 | This tally could possibly have been a lot more had it not been for his unreliable behaviour in the show ring . |
| 11 | It could possibly have been an animal , for witnesses have described it as being ‘ woolly ’ and having a stale smell , rather like a sheep . |
| 12 | Allott , also 35 , was recalled from holiday in Wales to discover his fate , but it could hardly have been a surprise as he has not regularly figured in Lancashire 's games this season . |
| 13 | Furthermore , the offer could hardly have been a surprise to him . |
| 14 | This was never well stocked and could hardly have been a goldmine . |
| 15 | Though its effects were remarkable enough , it could hardly have been the progenitor of the wave of organisation which had initially affected the primary port areas of Britain outside London — particularly Liverpool , Cardiff and Glasgow — in the late autumn of the previous year . |
| 16 | It could hardly have been the result of an error . |
| 17 | And as Morse opened his passenger door , he stood for a while looking up at the Pole Star , and asking himself the question he had been asking for the past two hours : was there any way in which Downes could still have been the murderer after all ? |
| 18 | They were reluctant to believe that there could ever have been a time when the Universe had not looked much like it is today . |
| 19 | In a nineteenth-century printed version of a fourteenth-century document a family was called de Farbereshaye , a form which seemed reasonable and could conceivably have been a version of Fabro = Smith and ( ge ) haeg = enclosure . |
| 20 | Looking at the matter generally , I can not believe that that could conceivably have been the intention of Parliament when passing the Children Act 1989 and thereby , if Judge Galpin is right , taking away from children within England and Wales the right to have an order made in their best interests by returning them to where they ought to be , which was a right which those children had , and parents acting on their behalf were able to claim in the courts , until 14 October 1991 . |
| 21 | Evidently it did not occur to him that it could also have been a case of the mastery of English becoming a kind of weapon in the mouths of the dispossessed . |
| 22 | There could also have been no coincidence in the scheduling of Lou Reed to speak before Jackson . |
| 23 | Such a copious supply of pure water would have been beneficial to the occupants , but it could also have been the centre of a water cult . |
| 24 | Coming back to Empingham , yeomen called John Parker resided in Belton and Clipsham , both in Rutland , though there is no clue as to which , if either , was the man listed under Empingham ; if he was the Belton man he could also have been the owner of a piece of land there — the MS is faded at this point . |
| 25 | Secondly , the improvement in lower oesophageal sphincter pressure could simply have been an artifact produced by the surgical procedure . |
| 26 | However , although there is no indication of the source of 10 marks payable to Roger Blomfeld of Buxton , Norfolk ( where he also owned land worth 13s. 4d. ) , the £1. 9s. 8d. assigned to Thomas Parker , a servant of the king at Elmley Lovett , Worcs. , could well have been a payment from the manor , which was a royal estate , and Parker himself did not live there . |
| 27 | Referring to the Braer disaster in Shetland , Capt Sclater said : ‘ This could well have been a tanker and it goes to show how vulnerable Orkney is . ’ |
| 28 | Without that damned barrister there could well have been a verdict of accidental death . |
| 29 | If he 'd become too demanding , and ‘ doing something about him ’ meant ending the relationship , that could well have been a motive for killing her . |
| 30 | Another consequence of the re-establishment of the authority of Constantius in Britain could well have been an attack on pagan monuments and practices , which had been tolerated under Magnentius . |