Example sentences of "could [prep] [be] " in BNC.
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1 | ‘ Pupils who write could of are applying good phonic principles of writing , ’ wrote one trendy clown of an educationist , ‘ because they always hear the unstressed ‘ have ’ of ‘ could have ’ reduced in pronunciation ’ ( yes , on radio and TV — and , if you ask me , this asda be bad ) . |
2 | That could of been 'bout us — |
3 | I could of been a laundress , |
4 | I could of been a waitress — |
5 | I could of been a housemaid |
6 | Erm , dum , dum , the market stall as you know , we did n't have it in the market , we had it on the thank goodness because we parked it in the shade , erm during that period we got five hundred and thirty two signatures , with three or four more of you it could of been a thousand , erm we also got fourteen pounds , seventeen in donations , all completely unasked for cos as you know , we do n't take money . |
7 | So you could , the handwriting could of been neater , fine and then you want to pay some attention to your illustrations in the future , that 's good , come on then shout at me , it 's the only time you 're allowed . |
8 | Yeah , you 're longest chain is a six so it could of been clearly based on hexane . |
9 | The these could of been yeah , they were bringing er er an , I 'm bringing it in because I |
10 | Oh yes , yes , we , the we had an extremely large rooms , I do n't know went , what , what , what went wrong the architect but we had two enormous rooms which could of been quite easily divided into three , but we could of had two bedrooms instead of one and the conse |
11 | the flat in , in London , the flat we came from and so we had accumulated a little more furniture than one would usually have in two rooms and the kitchen and we got here and were allowed to spread ourselves , if there 's one criticism that one could say about this house , is that the size of the rooms confines you to what you put in them , they 're square , that the , the division between the living room and the dining room is through a pair of glass doors , where perhaps that could of been arranged with either sliding doors or some other feature so as not to separate it yet again into two square boxes and erm |
12 | The incidence is one in ten thousand so it 's pretty rare but untreated these children will grow up very seriously , mentally retarded , very , very poor quality of life and enormous stress on their families , when they could of been nearly normal , right so the cause is one of these essential amino acids which is powdered protein , so what 's the treatment ? |
13 | Could of been a cataract operation , should of been |
14 | Could of been , yes |
15 | I mean , that could of been er er , an element of Victorian proprietary in there . |
16 | they 'd be all sorts of ways in which they could of kept the agented funds , erm they could of been , but it 's hard to imagine that , that |
17 | the laws of that could of been an important element of competition |
18 | Might be a bit more than that , but erm , could of been nine . |
19 | I ca n't see that that could of been Friday 's episode that 's still effecting you today . |
20 | Yeah , could of been , yes . |
21 | We should have left it there could of been more than this one . |
22 | if I 'd got here a minute quicker I 'd got you some chocolate biscuits you could of been having with that cup of tea |
23 | then you 've got your two prominent teeth , they could of been the tiger 's two teeth |
24 | no , I 'm not that ignorant could of been , it 's so funny is n't it ? |
25 | that ducks do have eggs it 's possible they could of been there but they were n't . |
26 | So at that time that could of been taken into the context of , or one anyway , going to the same place |
27 | And I remember just sort of leaping onto some grass and just letting it go , you know , could of been . |
28 | so yes it could of been , yes , a long time actually . |
29 | Could of been allergic to something was she ? |
30 | It could of been Sally 's friend . |