Example sentences of "it could [adv] have [verb] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | It could scarcely have come at a worse time . |
| 2 | I congratulate the British farming industry on keeping its temper at times when it could easily have boiled over and reciprocated . |
| 3 | If one writes and asks — or begs — British Rail to include improvements in the Bill which it could easily have done by extending part III , one gets the same treatment . |
| 4 | The company had stuck with the infant system at a time when it could easily have collapsed , and the ITA 's credibility with it . |
| 5 | That is why , if the stock exchange had built Taurus many years ago , as promised , it could also have ensured the earlier abolition of stamp duty . |
| 6 | It could also have mentioned another aspect of Labour 's election advertising which , though more implicit than subliminal , was not at all lost on lesbians and gay men — or anybody not actively engaged in Happy Heterosexuality . |
| 7 | I suspect that the mulberry sauce — we are not told for what manner of meat it was intended — may have originated somewhere in Asia Minor and was perhaps brought to Italy after the Venetian conquest of Constantinople in 1204 A.D. It could equally have come via Persia or Afghanistan where , as in Turkey , the berries of the white or silk mulberry are dried to provide a supply for the winter . |
| 8 | Indeed , when Pilate produced a coin which had an augur 's staff on its obverse , it could well have cost him his job ; for an augur 's staff smelt of pagan religion , and that could not be tolerated in Judea . |
| 9 | He was young , and not at all bad-looking ; she thought that it could well have happened in a much worse way . |
| 10 | Without them it is questionable whether the Uprising would have happened and if it had , whether it could either have embraced the total population or sustained itself for so long . |
| 11 | If Telecom really wanted to get a cost-effective solution to a 60,000 square foot head office requirement , it could simply have bought Montrose House on Adelaide Road two years earlier than it bought the Ballsbridge site . |
| 12 | The gesture , if it could ever have had any importance , was now certainly much too late , for it was no longer in Paris but in Berlin that events would be decided , as Bismarck had begun to make clear . |
| 13 | But there can not be an infinite series of causes stretching back endlessly ; for in that case , no matter how far back we were to look , we should never find a beginning of the whole process , and that in turn would make it quite impossible to understand how it could ever have got off the ground , let alone reached its present state . |
| 14 | Leather , so luxurious you find yourself wondering whether it could really have come from a cow , finds its perfect match in glossy burr walnut . |
| 15 | It could never have reached there , and settled , of course , had the castle guns opened fire . |
| 16 | It could never have opened without generous fund-raisers . |
| 17 | ‘ So it could hardly have taken you by surprise that she 'd started up life with a different partner . ’ |
| 18 | Industrial output has stabilised , too , after falling over 60% in 1991–92 , the most precipitous economic collapse in Eastern Europe ( having fallen that far , it could hardly have got worse ) . |
| 19 | It could only have come from Gerry , and Gerry was dead . |
| 20 | For if Eliot 's debt to the French poets went beyond an easy charting of ‘ influences ’ , or the neat and better than neat adaptation of French lines ( for instance , from Laforgue ) into English , it could only have meant an elimination from poetry of any notion of ‘ message ’ . |
| 21 | It could then have pleaded force of circumstances and lack of resources , not as a defence but as an excuse . |
| 22 | But even should she explain it to her as his ruse to get his own way with her , there was still the possibility that the ruse might not have come off ; in anyone older than him and less strong , it could possibly have achieved its object . |
| 23 | It could possibly have happened before . |