Example sentences of "[adv] could not have [verb] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | It did not display , perhaps could not have done so , the depth of biblical scholarship that the later encyclical did so much to encourage . |
| 2 | Without employing his own servants as agents and deputies Sadler obviously could not have managed his group of offices ; as it was he complained of seldom going to bed before midnight and generally waking by 4. a.m . |
| 3 | He felt that Woolley had no right to be so contemptuous , so damaging ; Killion alone could not have stopped a bombing raid ; besides , had n't he just destroyed two , maybe three of the enemy ? |
| 4 | The oil crisis alone could not have shattered the confidence which capitalists felt during most of the golden years . |
| 5 | The man below could not have seen the movement , but he felt some shifting of the air above him , or heard , perhaps , if he had a wild beast 's hearing as he had its gait , the mere rustle of a sleeve against the stone . |
| 6 | She says she just could n't have made it through those times without the support of her actor boyfriend , Robert Lugan . |
| 7 | Sometimes people 's clothes give you problems that you just could n't have imagined . |
| 8 | Yeah , his body would have just could n't have taken much more ! |
| 9 | All these questions were dealt with fully during the course , so Derek and I felt that we had learnt a great deal of new and fascinating information that we just could n't have got out of books . |
| 10 | With her broken fingers , she probably could n't have outdrawn the thing . |
| 11 | In a world of TV , anonymous journalism probably could not have survived : when we see a face , we want a name ( besides , print journalists were needed as guests on TV current affairs shows ) . |
| 12 | Much is being made of the presence of pollen in the samples , yet Crone states that the mixture of pollen and fungus on the leaves and rocks probably could not have occurred naturally . |
| 13 | What I 'm going to suggest to you however is er a child of that size being covered by a duvet you really could n't have missed if you bothered to look . |
| 14 | They really could n't have managed without him . |
| 15 | Modern science is critically dependent on high-performance computing ; studies of the world 's changing climate , structural engineering , and medical imaging simply could not have progressed to their present state without access to the sort of computing power that can only be provided by parallel machines . |
| 16 | No disrespect is meant to Neil Kinnock to say that his departure from the leadership has opened up a space for debate that simply could not have existed under his regime . |
| 17 | Such rapid recycling simply could not have happened either in socialist systems ( dependent on credit-by- fiat ) , or by Western governments attempting to get the taxpayers ' democratically elected representatives in government to vote the funds for expanded government-to-government loans , i.e. foreign aid . |
| 18 | It has also been argued that the small mouths of the giants simply could not have downed enough food to support a warm-blooded metabolism , particularly plant food that needs a lot of processing before it becomes available as energy . |
| 19 | Keld is a Norse word meaning ‘ a spring ’ and the first settlers here could not have chosen a more appropriate name for there is always the sound of water ; the little cluster of stone buildings occupies a headland thrust into the turbulent cataracts of the Swale , in infancy Yorkshire 's most exuberant river . |
| 20 | He surely could not have known that in spite of his final words . |
| 21 | Having said that , the 12 who played out there could not have done more . |
| 22 | When times were good , men married earlier and some were able to marry who otherwise could not have married at all — and vice versa . |
| 23 | By a notice of appeal dated 1 March 1991 the defendant appealed on the grounds , inter alia , ( 1 ) that the donee of the power of appointment , the defendant 's mother , Mrs. Mary Steed , did not know that she had been appointed attorney by the defendant and accordingly could not have known that she had any power to deal with his property when she executed the transfer of 4 September 1979 , and that in those circumstances the plea of non est factum ought to have succeeded on the judge 's finding that the donee was tricked into signing the transfer ; ( 2 ) the judge having rightly concluded that the transaction as affected was not a sale , save possibly at such a gross undervalue as to vitiate it as a sale , should therefore have held that the transfer was void and ineffective ; ( 3 ) the judge having rightly concluded that he retained a discretion to rectify the charges register against the registered holder , notwithstanding , as he found , that ( i ) the title of the mortgagors , Mr. and Mrs. Hammond , was merely voidable and not void , and ( ii ) that the registered holders of the charge were bona fide mortgagees for value without notice of the facts giving rise to voidability , then wrongly exercised his discretion to refuse to rectify since the considerations in favour of rectification could hardly have been stronger and his refusal to exercise his discretion was tantamount to denying the effective existence of such discretion , as if it was not exercised on the facts of this case it could never , or virtually never , be exercised at all ; and that , in the premises , the judge had erred in law in placing excessive reliance upon ( i ) and ( ii ) above to the exclusion of the other considerations which favoured rectification . |
| 24 | It is highly unlikely that any of the Pacific fish used in these tests had ever encountered a sea snake previously and in two instances they certainly could not have done so . |
| 25 | In Ecgfrith 's case , by the same principle , if he was killed in the fifteenth year of his reign and had only been king fourteen years , he may have become king in 671 and certainly could not have done so before 21 May 670 . |
| 26 | Ropes were then put on to keep it there but these alone certainly could not have restrained a 5-ton ( 5.08 tonnes ) elephant if it had taken it into its head to dismount during the journey . |
| 27 | Dear Boy , It must be very difficult for you sometimes I expect not having anyone and having to do all the shopping and cooking for yourself I know that when I was working I certainly could not have managed on my own , coming home tired and then making dinner your own dinner and then going upstairs to do some more work , what sort of life is that , though I know all about that because of course I did do that for three years almost , and I know how much happier I was when I knew there was someone waiting for me and having the dinner ready and keeping the house clean and all those things , or perhaps you people do n't think those things are important . |
| 28 | As we saw earlier , the technology of the time certainly could not have coped with a live street recording , so one wonders how the company got away with that . |
| 29 | Under the umbrella of a degree course in English Literature , Robyn read Freud and Marx , Kafka and Kierkegaard , which she certainly could n't have done at Oxbridge . |
| 30 | Right now she was incapable of concocting any kind of explanation , and she certainly could n't have faced telling them all the truth . |