Example sentences of "[noun pl] [modal v] do be " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | All the Elves could do was flee . |
| 2 | If you produce a proposal , the first thing a lot of British engineers will do is tell you what 's wrong with it . |
| 3 | What parents can do is buy in both their names with an account designation of up to three letters which would be the child 's initial . |
| 4 | What parents can do is buy in both their names with an account designation of up to three letters which would be the child 's initial . |
| 5 | What parents can do is buy in both their names with an account designation of up to three letters which would be the child 's initial . |
| 6 | All the judges can do is award a greater proportion of non pension assets to the wife to make up for her lack of long term security and if these other assets are small , the husband is still the winner . |
| 7 | The best the authorities could do was turn a blind eye . |
| 8 | What we as carers can do is to support the people concerned while they get on with it in their own way . |
| 9 | The worst thing that governments can do is to retard this admittedly painful process with subsidies to obsolete industries , or protectionist barriers . |
| 10 | The best the psychologists can do is describe the process as one of positive re-inforcement — which means that if you like something , you will tend to do it again . |
| 11 | For various reasons they were unable to attend this meeting , and so all the arresting officers could do was to take the names of those who were present . |
| 12 | The best thing managers can do is get out of their way . |
| 13 | What these things can do is to enhance the quality of life by helping us to transmute ‘ stress ’ into positive challenges , thus preventing the onset of apathy or even depression . |
| 14 | In fact , the first thing most such hypothetical new European states would do is , almost certainly , apply for admission to the European Community , which would once again limit their sovereign rights , though in a different manner from their previous situation . |
| 15 | The best that scientists can do is to submit specimens to an ‘ Arrhenius Test ’ , based on a formula by the Swedish physicist Arrhenius , which predicts the rate at which chemical reactions will occur . |
| 16 | We have some people on training courses who could tell that they 're quite theorists cos question of challenge if you actually put forward some ideas they 'll , they 'll question them , not in a negative way , but they just want to know well where have these come from and why and why is this and on your training courses what theorists will do is if you 're actually putting together forward and processing procedures that C U follow , they 'll question why they wo n't just accept it , they 'll actually question it , not in the negative way but they 'll want to understand it . |
| 17 | The best that societies can do is to strive to achieve them . |
| 18 | If the law is really going to be so pedantic over this , then the least the police can do is ensure everybody is aware of the rules well in advance . |
| 19 | all the police can do is tell them you know ? |
| 20 | It may be argued that such distinctions between what machines can do and what only humans can do are of merely temporary interest , since in principle there is nothing that a human can do that a machine might not be devised , some day , to do . |
| 21 | All eager students need do is to plough through its well-presented 600 pages and they will emerge as masters too . |
| 22 | The most ministers can do is to argue the case for change and enable the changes to be made . |
| 23 | Because what new drugs can do is they can put your blood pressure down quite quickly . |
| 24 | But is it the case that western women , living today in the United States , let alone in secular modern Europe , live in societies so dominated by the Christian myth , so ready to point to the place of women within the biblical tradition , that the best that women can do is to try to give a better reading of that past ? |
| 25 | It would be tedious to quote more than a few examples of the evidence from parliamentary commissions , the STC , union reports and surveys etc. , but the following quotations are typical : " About the only work which the women can do is to stand or sit at their formes and set up type ; and to distribute the types back again into the cases , but of course this is only a portion of a compositor 's work " ( an employer ) ; " " As far as mere type-lifting is concerned , she may do , but there is other rough work in connection with compositors " work which I do not think a woman is qualified for " ( a union leader ) ; " Women … get the best , i. e. the simplest jobs … they are kept always at pretty much the same kind of work " ( an employer ) . |
| 26 | Nicholas believed that the best thing non-Russians could do was become Russian . |
| 27 | The only thing the sailors could do was to cut a hole in the top of my box , and help me to climb out . |
| 28 | So many different factors may be relevant that no generalized conclusions can be reached , and the best that librarians can do is to ensure that as far as possible conditions for use in their own libraries are adapted to meet what research has revealed as ideal conditions . |