Example sentences of "it [was/were] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | You couldn ’ even prophesy your own death , when it wuz standin' right in front of you . |
| 2 | If it wuz me lyin' there , my Ruthie 'd be ransackin' the house lookin' fer the insurance policies , t'check they wuz payed up t'date . |
| 3 | It 's bin a mite hectic while it lasted , but it wuz worth it jes ’ t'smoke out that nest of rattlers that wuz runnin' Bethlehem House . |
| 4 | Apollinaire has been aptly called a company promoter of the avant-garde , responsible , as it were , for the successful flotations in Paris of Cubism and futurism . |
| 5 | The central figure , St Cecilia , seems rapt in such inspiration as produced her image in the painter 's mind ; her deep , dark , eloquent eyes lifted up ; her chestnut hair flung back from her forehead — she holds an organ in her hands — her countenance , as it were , calmed by the depth of its passion and rapture , and penetrated throughout with the warm and radiant light of life . |
| 6 | The ultimate synthesis of a design was never revealed in a flash ; rather he approached it with infinite precautions , stalking it , as it were , now from one point of view , now from another , and always in fear lest a premature definition might deprive it of something of its total complexity . |
| 7 | While a Western eye is familiar with the process of looking , as it were , through an image to what it represents or means , an Eastern critic looks also at the surface of a painting or a drawing , in which a poem or other calligraphic element may form an integral part of the work . |
| 8 | Then , ‘ Instead of struggling in vain to prevent them from reaching my consciousness , I stepped back , as it were , and let thoughts and feelings come and go . |
| 9 | The same angle was conspicuous in the title story of Naipaul 's previous book , In a Free State , where a coup in a new African country was studied , as it were , out of the corner of an eye ; and it also occurs elsewhere in his work . |
| 10 | From Rasselas , as it were , to Ozymandias . |
| 11 | As in the earlier books , the bravura set-piece dominates , and the most memorable concerns the crates in which the Portuguese have packed up their belongings , and which were eventually shipped out of Africa — Kapuscinski was to stumble on a few of them in Portugal , sunk , as it were , in the sand . |
| 12 | The poem might be thought self-pitying if it were more believable . |
| 13 | Babel 's bad times could be turned into art — an art which has been seen to release him , as it were , from his subject , and which has also been seen to hesitate . |
| 14 | The Alexander technique would be invaluable if it were properly included in all drama training programmes . |
| 15 | Yet our art persists in trying to render the world as though it were here , now , available , he wrote . |
| 16 | I can not express what a privilege it has been transcribing it and entering your very mind and spirit in the throes of creativity , as it were . |
| 17 | Peony looked suitably chastened , but there was a glint in her eye that told Peggy there was plenty more she could say , and would say , if it were n't for the fact that she adored the Vicar with a passion that bordered on the obsessive . |
| 18 | ‘ Said it were very nice , very nice indeed — and then he choked , went a funny colour , ripped his collar open , waved his arms a bit , and dropped down dead . |
| 19 | ‘ You tend to treat life as if it were a game of cricket , for one thing . ’ |
| 20 | One thing , though , the other residents have to ‘ vote you in ’ as it were — it 's just to make sure we do n't set up any violent personality clashes , that 's all . |
| 21 | She put her bag with the story on the passenger seat and drove as if it were a newborn baby . |
| 22 | WUKO Chief Referee Tommy Morris describes it as the sort of sound you make when pushing a really heavy car ; the sound explodes out of you , as it were . |
| 23 | But he never succumbs to what Max Scheler termed ressentiment — that mixture of resentment and anger and injured pride that destroys so many , even if it were present in earlier years . |
| 24 | And Leonard 's interests in it were moving from the amateur to the professional . |
| 25 | Well , he might say that one mental sentence is , as it were , ‘ upfront ’ ( for example ‘ The spectacles are broken ! ’ ) , but that this sentence has a network of connections to other sentences in the mental architecture ( ‘ They are made of glass , ’ ‘ They were purchased ’ , ‘ They are not unique ’ ) . |
| 26 | We have , as it were , no choice but to parse sentences in a particular way . |
| 27 | Although the majority of scientists tend to be a little coy about metaphysical matters in their professional publications , they are often less so outside when writing elsewhere , being prone to describe the framework of presuppositions about perception within which they conduct their investigations as if it were a discovery in its own right and that ‘ discovery ’ an explanation of perception . |
| 28 | To assert this is merely to reiterate a point that should be obvious : that science , however sophisticated its instrumentation , can not generate observations that somehow enable us to look at the relationship between experience and the world as it were from outside of experience . |
| 29 | For the idea of an object or an event with two metaphysically different aspects — with , as it were , an unextended mental front end and an extended physical rear end - is deeply puzzling . |
| 30 | Harriet puts her head on Jen 's shoulder , her long straight strange hair fanning across Jen 's breast as if it were her own hair , and her own short , coppery/gingery hair stops standing on end at the ghost in the wood and begins to flow loose . |