Example sentences of "can hardly have be a " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | When there were contractors to be handed out directors may have tried to help one another , but that can hardly have been a sufficient reason for buying up large blocks of shares . |
| 2 | She recovered — though the royal nursery in Linlithgow can hardly have been a peaceful place , with its occupant combining convalescence with the more normal infant problem of teething ; but she was entirely well by the time Sadler saw her again , in early August . |
| 3 | Nothing very dramatic here , then , but at least he was in the buying and selling game , not a wage slave , and there can hardly have been a time when it was not easier to sell the odd pork chop or two than it was to convince an employer that he ought to buy your skills as a craftsman . |
| 4 | The incident can hardly have been a minor affair . |
| 5 | For my part , there can hardly have been a day when I did not think of Eliot , when his growing prestige was not a source of immense satisfaction and pride to me , and when personal news about him , however brief , was more than welcome at such distance than propinquity without meeting would have been . |
| 6 | Certainly he never made any secret of his Conservative past , having twice stood unsuccessfully for parliament among the miners of County Durham , where his air of a slightly lost rural dean can hardly have been an asset . |
| 7 | Given the state of the war , the undeniable growth of anti-Nazi feeling , and the rising criticism of Hitler himself , which we have been able to document for the years 1942–4 , such reports can hardly have been an accurate reflection of existing attitudes . |