Example sentences of "[pers pn] [modal v] not [vb infin] be " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | It is possible for an aircraft to have several different modes of spinning , and all of them may not have been discovered during the testing . |
| 2 | Forty eight and and presumably many of the people who are perhaps seventy drawing pensions , they may not have even paid in thirty years themselves , I mean they may be many of them may not have been around for that period of time . |
| 3 | ‘ Mr Stevens , I may not have been a housekeeper for long , but I would say that in the time I have been , my abilities have attracted some very generous remarks . ’ |
| 4 | You see , I would be teased a lot at school because I may not have been as quick as the others , but Bernard never joined in . |
| 5 | ‘ I may not have been the tallest , nor the most athletic — Mick Doyle reckoned I only ever jumped from my shoulders up — but what I did have was the most effective arse in world rugby ’ . |
| 6 | McCallan said : ‘ I may not have been in the game a lot until I got my goal , but that made it up for it . ’ |
| 7 | I had been greatly amused , although I think I should not have been . |
| 8 | Had not the echo of my prayer been upon me still , I should not have been ready . |
| 9 | The whole of tonight 's entertainment looked to me unreal , something like a banqueting scene of an opera , and I should not have been surprised to find the capon under my knife to consist of cardboard and my ‘ goblet of sparkling wine ’ full of emptiness with a rim of cotton wool to represent the foam of the champagne that was not there . |
| 10 | When I asked what her name was , I should not have been surprised when she replied clearly : ‘ My name is Lydia . ’ |
| 11 | If I had had qualifications I should not have been able to use them legally , and I should have been too hoity-toity to take on the sort of me-nial , unregulated work available . |
| 12 | Had someone insisted he had seen me in Romorantin , or further afield , I should not have been able to confirm or deny the sighting . |
| 13 | But I should not have been sent straight from school to Somerville on Classics ; I wanted to swap to History but did not know enough , so I was encouraged to do P.P.E. I was bored by both Philosophy and Economics so I only worked at Politics ’ . |
| 14 | My friend says I should not have been taking this drug during my pregnancy and that it is well known that it can cause these problems . |
| 15 | My friend says I should not have been taking this drug during my pregnancy and that it is well known that it can cause these problems . |
| 16 | ‘ I might not have been as good as other Yorkshire left-arm spinners like Hedley Verity or Wilfred Rhodes , but perhaps my name can be mentioned alongside them . |
| 17 | If I 'd known , ’ said Cadfael dubiously , ‘ that you were going to bring her back safely , and no great harm done , I might not have been so busy about worrying out how she ever went astray . ’ |
| 18 | Then she tried to soften the reprimand by adding : ‘ I might not have been here . ’ |
| 19 | You 've ruined me , Piers Morrison , she thought angrily , staring at her reflection in the mirror as the prospect of a dreary Saturday evening faced her ; I might not have been terribly nice before I met you , but at least I was n't filled with this pain and dissatisfaction . |
| 20 | I said that I could not imagine being an atheist at any time before 1859 , when Darwin 's Origin of Species was published . |
| 21 | In 1980 , coming back from a hospital in the States where I had been told that I ought to have an operation ( interestingly on my throat — it was as though all the tension caused by what I could not say was caught up there ) , I saw that I had to be free of this . |
| 22 | What I could not say was that , as we two stood in the shadowy parlour , I felt considerably within her spell . |
| 23 | ‘ Oh no , ma'am , I could not have been plainer as to everything . ’ |
| 24 | I could not have been more bemused if characters from books had come up and started talking to me . |
| 25 | ‘ Then Orient came in for me and I could not have been happier with the way things worked out . ’ |
| 26 | Save for this fluke I could not have been in the position in which I now found myself . |
| 27 | I could not have been happier . |
| 28 | What I could not understand was the absence of consensus among adults as to what constituted death , and as to its meaning . |
| 29 | The only concession I could not get was leave to see him alone , but it 's plain I should have got nowhere with him even so . |
| 30 | I think now that I need not have been so prim and stand-offish , but I was afraid to wound him further by giving him what might possibly be taken for false ‘ encouragement ’ . |