Example sentences of "[vb past] [be] able " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | and I ca n't see the two people involved being able to stomach that very easily because questions like why did you not ask for counselling at the time or you were in charge and why did you not ensure he had any adequate |
| 2 | The Government took the view that the distinction between public and private was meritless , partly because in the course of the miners ' dispute , summonses brought under the 1936 Act , section 5 were dismissed because the persons charged were able to show that they were on National Coal Board or other private property , and no offence was committed even though the victims of the threats were on the public highway . |
| 3 | The purchase of land also presupposes that the peasantry involved were able to accumulate cash , which can have been done only by the production of surplus crops and their sale in a market . |
| 4 | How far those Saxons who disagreed were able to flee into wilder parts of the Weald may be doubted ; there seems to have been none of the resistance in wild areas which the Normans met when Hereward fled to the Isle of Ely and Yorkshiremen fought back . |
| 5 | Thanks to Charlie boy , they 'd been able to splash a bit on the wedding and Marilyn could have the white satin and the four bridesmaids she 'd set her heart on . |
| 6 | If only he 'd been able to finish off the plastic swan and the weeping-kid picture there 'd have been some hope for the flat . |
| 7 | But he was glad he 'd been able to fend off too many probing journalistic questions about her ; he did n't want them publishing any comments about her at this stage , that was sure . |
| 8 | It would all have been different if we 'd been able to have children . ’ |
| 9 | Retracing my steps , I realized with a shock that I was no more able to find my way back to the village than I 'd been able to find the place we 'd been raking . |
| 10 | She was lucky she 'd been able to keep it a secret all along . |
| 11 | I wished I 'd been able to take a photograph of gaunt-face , but I 'd been more keen to listen . |
| 12 | We 'd been able to keep the same crew from coast to coast , he said , only because of the two rest breaks along the way . |
| 13 | Feeling pleased for them , I lowered the binoculars through which I 'd been able to see even the tears on Mrs Unwin 's cheeks , and there below me and in front of the grandstand was the man with the gaunt face looking up towards the Clubhouse windows . |
| 14 | A bandage round his head , a cup of tea in his blunt hands , he looked like the only survivor of some great catastrophe , and Nathan could understand exactly why he 'd been able to move India-May to tears and why he 'd been given a room on the first floor , one of the large ones , for nothing . |
| 15 | ‘ Yes , of course we 'd have carried on if we 'd been able to make a living at it . |
| 16 | It was their ritual , ever since she 'd been able to string words together . |
| 17 | Maybe if I 'd been able to do some kind of planche , like your painter friend did on your … back , it would have been easy , but what I had to do was first try to get something akin to an erection standing at the copier of a deserted office on a holiday . |
| 18 | I was surprised I 'd been let in at all , surprised that I 'd been able to wander freely about the second and first floors of the cold labyrinthian building of stairwells , escalators and concrete locker-lined corridors . |
| 19 | It must have been hard for her — uprooted and transported to a strange country — not to know what was happening to her and her mother , apart from the fact that somehow or other they 'd been able to join up again with the father . |
| 20 | On Starr Hills , she 'd been able to talk to him ; but she did n't think she could now . |
| 21 | Till now she 'd been able to cope , after a fashion ; even going dumb with terror had been a way of coping . |
| 22 | But it was an improvement on William 's taste in art and they served a good pint of bitter , and Preston might almost have settled back to enjoy it if he 'd been able to forget their reason for being there and if Emily had n't kept on at him about William and the Black Death . |
| 23 | It was going to help me , with what I had in mind , the fact that I 'd been able to wise him up on that . |
| 24 | She said sharply , ‘ My romantic novels enabled you girls to have a carefree life , the sort of life I wish I 'd been able to give your father . ’ |
| 25 | I 'll tell Sheila straightaway ’ made me feel that , at last , I 'd been able to give them some good news . |
| 26 | Barely more than half an hour before , he 'd driven into the village on an errand for the Venetz sisters and although he saw almost no one along the way , he 'd been able to sense a tension in the air ; it was a faint background buzz like that of power lines in the rain . |
| 27 | Adele had looked up at him , not quickly but as quickly as she 'd been able . |
| 28 | He might have lied about it if he 'd been able to think more quickly , but the truth was out before he knew it . |
| 29 | Her early education had been poor because of the misconception amongst her teachers that language ability and intelligence were somehow different facts of a single concept , and it was only in later life , with the help of her husband , that she 'd been able to make up on the intellectual deprivation of those early years . |
| 30 | For a few brief moments he 'd been able to forget the room and the bizarre encampment and Hennessy at his elbow , and he 'd conversed in a language that came to him now almost as readily as his first ; he 'd conversed with a dark-eyed alien . |