Example sentences of "they could have been [verb] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | The Sharrock family know they 've had a lucky escape ; any one or all of them could have been injured , or even killed , when someone threw a brick at their car from an overhead footbridge . |
| 2 | Through him the notion of the responsible use of power by a divinely ordained ruling class was introduced directly into the educational system , and boys were exposed systematically and en masse to an idea which only a few of them could have been counted on to pick up informally at home . |
| 3 | But they do occur , and some of them could have been avoided . |
| 4 | Well why did n't they get a mile away from where they put that money they could 've , they could 've been planned it away , a mile away all |
| 5 | But they could 've been talking about something personal and we would 've heard everything they said . |
| 6 | No it 's erm , on , on Monday , on Monday morning they could 've been working |
| 7 | He teaches you how to write wonderful , metaphysical narratives , but they could have been written any time this century . |
| 8 | If she had also left her name and address they could have been parcelled up and posted to her — but she had n't . |
| 9 | In fact , the high quality of iron ore available to the Romans in Britain combined with the use of charcoal fuel in the smelting process , meant that they could have been producing steel which would have given a much harder and sharper edge to the blade than normal iron . |
| 10 | They could have been sentenced to five years in prison . |
| 11 | Some of the questions were so easy that they could have been answered by a 10-year-old , let alone a student of 16 . |
| 12 | This may partly reflect the fact that many aspects of the situation ( road layout , signs , shops etc. ) were deliberately excluded on the basis that they could have been obtained from previous local knowledge . |
| 13 | they could have been lost quite easily . |
| 14 | They could have been made by the same craftsman . |
| 15 | He could tell nothing from their faces ; they could have been made of stone . |
| 16 | ‘ What do you think they could have been looking for — the people who ransacked her cottage ? ’ |
| 17 | It would have been nice to have had somebody so that they could have been turned on together by the faint giggles and murmured conversation coming from upstairs . |
| 18 | He argued that teenagers were wasting their opportunities at Dovercourt , keeping the futile hope alive that they would be adopted by rich families and lead a fine life , when they could have been using their time to constructive purpose . |
| 19 | In addition , about 20 per cent of projects , mostly larger than average , had little or no additionality ; that is , they could have been implemented by the private sector alone . |
| 20 | This is truer of the discourse chapters ( 6 and 7 ) than of the others ; perhaps they could have been expanded . |
| 21 | AS the Prince and Princess of Wales sat only a few feet apart in Seoul 's Presidential palace yesterday they could have been mistaken for strangers uncomfortably thrown together . |
| 22 | Two men had escaped the inrush but had been trapped in a long section of roadway ; they had lived together in the pitch dark and freezing cold for about 8 days , until overcome by poisonous gas ; there was no way in which they could have been saved in time had their position been known . |
| 23 | Geologists , mapping the site , found it difficult to understand how they could have been shaped by the normal forces of erosion . |
| 24 | From this it appears that they would have to become unrecognisable as potatoes before they could have been said to have perished . |
| 25 | They could have been writing under Stalin : ‘ Life in blocks of apartments … means living under the close scrutiny of your neighbours . |
| 26 | Indeed , they could have been altered if the Government had not wasted their bargaining power in attempts to defend the indefensible , attack the trivial and obtain the illusory . |
| 27 | A spokesman said they could have been trying to race the MG . |
| 28 | They could have been tailored for you . |
| 29 | They could have been painted from picture postcards and probably were . |
| 30 | Some estates may have received new owners with little change , or they could have been divided and redistributed ; others may have been enlarged with the addition of adjacent lands or groups of estates under a single owner . |