Example sentences of "could not " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | ’ Pilinski had to redraw his copy of the old and valuable original because he could not paste the original on his block and engrave through it . |
| 2 | The scope or character of a piece of criticism is naturally related to the magazine or newspaper in which it appears , as we noticed in the case of Dore Ashton 's dismissal from the New York Times because it was asserted that her work could not be understood by the paper 's readers . |
| 3 | On a patch where the rough surface of brickwork was exposed , someone had vomited , probably a passing drunk whose sense of propriety , demanding privacy , had deterred him from being sick in the street ; or a returning resident who could not wait to climb the few steps to the communal toilet on the first half-landing . |
| 4 | They are pieces of writing which are distinct in law ; the author of the one could not be sued for the other , or for collaborating in it . |
| 5 | He could not get on with the believing Jews from Eastern Europe whose religion and traditions he neither shared nor understood . |
| 6 | They could not be let into it , but there was a duty to entertain them , and , as I was told , not to stare . |
| 7 | The committee was largely made up of Roman catholic clergy , and they clearly opposed the appointment on the grounds that a protestant could not be trusted to safeguard the catholic morals of her charges in her purchase and loaning of books . |
| 8 | The reaction of the first Dáil to successive attempts to introduce legislation for divorce was to change standing orders so that such a bill could not be introduced again . |
| 9 | He argued that Article 42 of the constitution claimed the primary right of care for the natural parents and was inalienable : it could not be delegated . |
| 10 | Whereas similar provisions in other countries were mainly designed to provide facilities which could or could not be used , the Irish ones were to be compulsory and there was to be no choice of doctor . |
| 11 | In an interview with the popular intellectual magazine Magill in June , Archbishop MacNamara found he could not accept that the state had the power to determine the meaning and nature of marriage and compared the effects of divorce to the recent Chernobyl nuclear disaster . |
| 12 | It announced that , if doctrine as opposed to Bible stories was to be a part of school education , then such religious education could not adopt a common denominator approach between the churches , but had to be total in its presentation of what the Roman catholic church considered to be the truth , otherwise such an approach would be ‘ dangerous ’ for the children ( Gaine 1968 : 164 ) . |
| 13 | But I do not mean to suggest either , he wrote , that it was all waiting and no doing , all sitting and no action , for though it was impossible to tell when the beginning would come , indeed , he wrote , there could not have been a real beginning if it had been possible to tell , for if it had been possible to tell that would have meant that there had already been a beginning , no , wrote Harsnet ( typed Goldberg ) , occasionally things were done , work was begun , though it was soon abandoned , it added up to nothing , it only showed me that I had been mistaken in thinking that I had indeed started . |
| 14 | And it has to be said , he wrote , that its opposite , a feeling of elation , equally physical , equally extra-physical , has also been a constant feature of my life , manifesting itself regularly though impossible to predict , a reeling in the chest this time , the chest and perhaps the throat , a feeling of the heart leaping and the blood pumping , it came when I first took up a brush and made a mark on paper , it came when I picked up the first readymade and felt it transformed by that very action , it came when Madge rang to say she could not go on , when Annie wrote to say she was not coming back , when the idea of the glass first popped into my head . |
| 15 | I could not formulate it to myself then but I felt the uniqueness . |
| 16 | Days eating scraps because I could not bear to enter a shop , talk to another human being , have people see me . |
| 17 | Could not stay long in the room with it , but the ice had been broken . |
| 18 | Mr Kidd said he already had anecdotal evidence of US conventions pulling out of the UK : ‘ One conference of surgeons and one group of insurance sales staff , who planned to come to London for two weeks , could not find a hotel they were happy with . ’ |
| 19 | That car could not have tipped over of itself . |
| 20 | I could not in the court of law swear that you had been under my observations the whole time we were making the ascent . ’ |
| 21 | Last Sunday the belated Lord Woodleigh and Miss Jilly Jonathan could not see the famous Blue Grotto on this island because Lord Woodleigh insisted to go to Mass in a church here . |
| 22 | He could not comprehend but he could feel it . |
| 23 | But this — the group decision to put make-believe before reality — he could not take it in . |
| 24 | The very word ‘ Mystery ’ could not provide a much heavier clue , and I am bold to assert that Agatha Christie 's inspiration to write mysteries featuring Hercule Poirot sprang directly from her reading of the following extract from the Harrogate Third Shepherd 's Pay in the Hull Cycle ( ‘ as it hath been divers time acted by the Guild of Chandlers and Gardners upon the Feast of Corpus Christie , ) : |
| 25 | Henry Tyler would not have described her as a happy woman , but afterward he could not say that she had seemed at all unwell . |
| 26 | That was his first mistake : he could not now avoid talking to me . |
| 27 | I simply could not understand the boys ' sense of humour . |
| 28 | I could not believe that I 'd been so stupid , or that such a simple mistake was about to have such dire consequences . |
| 29 | I was surprised to learn that my claim could not be backdated , but I wrote those first three weeks ' money off to inexperience . |
| 30 | For the next few days I was horribly inactive , gripped by a lethargy that I could not for the life of me understand . |