Example sentences of "that it [was/were] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | Nor is it sensible to wish that it were otherwise , since raptures , aesthetic , erotic , intellectual , mystical , in which the spontaneous floods the whole of consciousness , can lift us to heights of awareness beyond our ordinary capacities . |
| 2 | It may turn out not to be the final or the only unit of analysis but , even so , to contend that it were would not be so wildly wrong as treating America as fifty states without mentioning the Federal Government . |
| 3 | Stalnaker , 1975 ) Or , to interpret the idea in a way less ontologically extravagant , a way which does not seem to commit us to a plurality of somehow existing worlds , what the conditional means is this : if our actual world were different in that it were raining , and differences overall were in a sense the smallest possible , the balcony would be wet . |
| 4 | Would that it were . |
| 5 | Would that it were . |
| 6 | The ski resort as such is not down in the valley at all , would that it were ; rather , it is perched to devastatingly conspicuous effect on the side of a mountain to the west , up to which you can go either by car along a new road or by cable-car from the centre of Saint-Lary . |
| 7 | ’ And then , reaching out to touch his arm , ‘ I would that it were otherwise , Fergus . ’ |
| 8 | ‘ I would that it were possible , ’ he said . |
| 9 | ‘ I tell you , there are times when I could agree with the good doctor of Norwich , old Tom Browne , that it were better if we humans propagated in the manner of trees . |
| 10 | At the same time I thought how few people , apart from Eliot , could have sat and telephoned from that desk : meanwhile , reflecting that it were more proper to appear to be contemplating the exterior than to be glancing at Eliot 's papers scattered in front of me . |
| 11 | Therefore , while absence may spell the end of acquaintanceship , it will not in itself destroy friendship ; and while Dr Johnson was right to say that we should keep our friendships in good repair , the perpetual shoring up of friendship might suggest that it were less enduring than we had supposed . |
| 12 | I wish that it were possible to bring more of those who are responsible for them to justice , but , as my hon. Friend knows , because he makes a close study of such matters , it is often impossible for the police to identify those who are responsible . |
| 13 | Would that it were so . |
| 14 | As she said it , she stared fixedly at the shredded corner of her notepad and wished vainly , but with all her heart , that it were true . |
| 15 | ‘ We are , ’ he insisted , his grip on her wrist tightening , ‘ and I wish that it were n't happening — ’ |
| 16 | Fabia drove through Belgium and into Germany wishing with all she had that it were Saturday and that her interview with the highly esteemed author were over . |
| 17 | so that it were n't even made sure that it did n't |
| 18 | Yes , yes , that 's right , they use , yeah , but I insisted that it were open doors for you as jobs were so hard to get , I said it were open doors for you and it did it helped them both . |
| 19 | That it were coming down and then |
| 20 | But you know on his log book , last person that had the car he went down to see them , and they told him that it were thirty thousand over from when they sold it . |
| 21 | You said that it were n't on anyway . |
| 22 | Would that it were as easy as sticking your hand up to vote for it Because I have to say that I see no evidence since that motion approving the management initiative was passed of Labour and Liberal members doing any more than paying lip service . |
| 23 | I think all of us wish this epidemic would go away , and that it would n't touch us and that it were only small numbers , but the news today clearly shows that it affects each and every one of us . |
| 24 | I have far fewer friends and I am partially sighted , which makes me a lot more vulnerable ; but whatever happens physically , I have always said that it was what happened mentally that mattered . |
| 25 | I have far few friends and I am partially sighted , which makes me a lot more vulnerable ; but whatever happens physically , I have always said that it was what happened mentally that mattered . |
| 26 | Kate Millett and William Kunstler went about the world protesting against the trial on the grounds that it was ‘ political ’ . |
| 27 | Conrad said of The Secret Agent , another book about revolutionaries , cranks , crooks , somnambulists , peripherals and phantasmagoricals , that it was written ‘ in scorn as well as in pity ’ , and the same could be said of Guerrillas . |
| 28 | It is a contender : a colleague of Ackroyd 's on The Times announced that it was a ‘ sure contender ’ for the Booker Prize of 1987 ( which it did n't receive ) . |
| 29 | WE live at a time when reporters go to foreign countries where there is trouble and come back to write books in which they say that it was hard to make out what was going on . |
| 30 | Because Sandy was embarked on a marriage and a career pointing him in a more conventional direction than mine , planning the sort of life that looked to me to have more obviously evolved from the background I 'd put behind me , it did n't seem to me that he would have had the wherewithal — ‘ morally ’ , as I would have been quick to say then — to help me through my predicament or , if he did , that it was possible for me with my values , to solicit his assistance . |