Example sentences of "was about " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | The letter-writer is an orthopaedic surgeon who was taken off a plane as he was about to make a short visit to the UK where he had been a post-graduate student . |
| 2 | It was this , I am thinking , that made Miss Jonathan realize that if the marriage she was about to enter into with a man much different from herself , and older also , would not go well , she would never from a Catholic be obtaining a divorce . |
| 3 | Sergeant Bramble was about to remonstrate when they were interrupted by Constable Quince wheeling his bicycle . |
| 4 | I was about to say ballet was spasmo , but I stopped myself . |
| 5 | I was about to throw it at one of the maids as she passed beneath me with a tray of glasses , but just then Claire came out of the reception room . |
| 6 | I could not believe that I 'd been so stupid , or that such a simple mistake was about to have such dire consequences . |
| 7 | I got up and walked quickly out of the coffee shop , up over the footbridge and on to the other platform — jumping on to the train just as it was about to go . |
| 8 | What was true on the wider front was also true at a personal level : Layton was about to go into his most prolific period of writing , and the whole literary scene was being galvanised into a productivity never before realised in Canada . |
| 9 | Moreover , Canada itself was changing — in the great building programmes in and around Montreal ( not least at McGill itself , one of whose schemes resulted in the superb McLennan Library ) and , more ominously , in the growth of separatism that was about to rock , in Pierre Trudeau 's words , ‘ the smug complacency ’ of English-Canada , the Canada of the WASPS ( ‘ White , Anglo-Saxon and Protestant ’ ) and of the Roman Catholic Church , a party to the ‘ Quiet Revolution ’ . |
| 10 | ‘ I was about to go . ’ |
| 11 | Maggie was about to protest that talking to Roger and Luke did not qualify as lurking , but Roger made off with a bottle in each hand and Luke had vanished again . |
| 12 | Maggie was about to tell him not to talk nonsense when Caroline arrived , clasping a man 's elbow in her right hand . |
| 13 | Where could that particular player he was about to confront , volley the ball ? |
| 14 | I had once taken hold of a piece of rock , and was about to trust my whole weight upon , it , when it loosened from its bed , and I should have been sent headlong to the bottom had I not instinctively snatched hold of a tuft of grass , which grew close by it , and was so firm as to save me . |
| 15 | Rumours that the Willis stake was about to change hands ahead of a bid have fuelled the progress . |
| 16 | The scheme was now financially viable , and the last instalment of a private start-up loan of substantially less than £1m was about to be repaid . |
| 17 | This was quickly followed by a spate of bid rumours , the most sensational of which was that Adia , the big Swiss-based recruitment consultant , was about to launch a takeover bid . |
| 18 | INDUSTRY was divided last night on whether the economy was about to enter a damaging recession but there was general agreement that jobs and investment would be hit severely . |
| 19 | There had been considerable speculation and concern that it was about to do so . |
| 20 | Yesterday , in his rather large article , Mr Ford could have offered an explanation for the statement — for instance , had the CIA briefed him that eastern European communism was about to unravel ? |
| 21 | In often busy trading Scottish shares frothed up 20p to 389p with stories flowing that the French BSN foods and drinks group or the giant US brewer Anheuser-Busch was about to pounce . |
| 22 | ‘ I would hardly be joining a group if I felt it was about to be taken over . |
| 23 | Nevertheless , she kept returning to the nest , and one morning I had a sudden feeling that she was about to hatch something , after all . |
| 24 | I was about to call a doctor and then , suddenly , I had a feeling which I can only describe as — excuse me — ecstatic . |
| 25 | Approaching the door he said to [ name of another neighbourhood policeman ] , who was about to knack , |
| 26 | I thought for one moment he was about to perform a Highland Fling . |
| 27 | This was powerfully expressed in a valedictory message from the retiring ambassador to Paris , Sir Nicholas Henderson , who was about to succeed Peter Jay at the British embassy in Washington . |
| 28 | So now in America his two friends had to rescue him from certain death by yanking him back , as he meditated and was about to walk in front of a fast street-car . |
| 29 | No one except Ramsey could teach what Christian doctrine was about . |
| 30 | They warned the Queen 's private secretary Sir Alan Lascelles that the Queen was about to meet an eccentric . |