Example sentences of "could [not/n't] [vb infin] " in BNC.

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1 This last project is an embarrassingly inappropriate tribute to a man who could not identify any plants , trees or birds that he saw on his journeys except by such vapid statements as ‘ big and little birds of all sorts ’ , ‘ trees very green ’ , and ‘ many trees very different from ours . ’
2 He could not identify the Fairy Topic , either , and this gave him a not uncommon sensation of his own huge ignorance , a grey mist , in which floated or could be discerned odd glimpses of solid objects , odd bits of glitter of domes or shadows of roofs in the gloom .
3 But writing in 1987 , Fords could not identify any British university libraries conforming to the Atkinson mode .
4 Even at first assessment the difficulties faced by these dementia sufferers are apparent : two-thirds could not identify three coins , three out of five could not name three or four parts of a watch , and one half could not tell the time or correctly select a medicine bottle .
5 This work demonstrated some of the special problems which have to be solved to design good GUIs for GIS : thus , an icon of a single pine tree caused some confusion when presented to a forester since he could not identify its species !
6 Sonar made interesting contacts but could not identify them directly , while passive underwater photography ( photographing whatever passes a given spot ) had the potential to reveal essential detail but could not be expected to make contact without a much sounder basis for deploying the cameras .
7 Pete was in her form at school and whenever she looked at him little quivers she could not identify started deep inside her .
8 They could not identify my writing .
9 Owing to Amal 's seclusion as a female , she could not identify her attackers by name , only that they were acquaintances of her brother .
10 Even Microsoft 's own managers could not identify pirated copies of the company 's prized Windows and MS-DOS programmes that appeared in Taiwan last year .
11 It was reported that a small altar dominated his room , decorated with the withered heads of animals forensics could not identify , its centre-piece an idol of such explicitly sexual a nature no newspaper dared publish a sketch of it , let alone a photograph .
12 reached a similar result by a different route ; he could not identify an ‘ international ’ meaning of the phrase , but interpreting it by reference to English law ( but not adopting ‘ any parochial classification of a procedural nature ’ ) he held that fiscal matters were a special category , outwith that of ‘ civil or commercial ’ .
13 Several times I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of something I could not identify .
14 I could not identify my feelings , they must have been those of shock .
15 He stopped every now and then to listen to the patient lapping of the water , the light breeze in the leaves , scurries and sounds in the wood which he could not identify but which helped to reinforce the solitude he needed .
16 When , however , in one district , private hospitals attempted to provide data they found that in most cases they could not identify patients ' districts of residence ( S Israel , personal communication ) .
17 We could not identify all such workers as complete records have not survived and instead used the closest approximations possible — namely , records incorporating home address of all those ( more than 17000 ) attending the medical centre at the Sullom Voe oil terminal in Shetland during its construction phase ( believed to represent a high proportion of all but short stay workers ) ; 3500 construction workers at the Flotta oil terminal in Orkney ( incomplete data ) ; and more than 10000 offshore workers , being all those who obtained an offshore survival certificate ( required for such work ) in Scotland in the period from June 1976 ( the earliest date for which records have not been destroyed ) to 1980 .
18 There was an overpoweringly strong odour of stale tobacco smoke , and beneath that , other smells which were alien to her nostrils and which she could not identify .
19 She had n't , either ; she had sensed , in Tommaso 's treat , something that she could not identify , but that she wanted to smother , keeping it from her sister 's knowledge : so she pinched Franco really hard on the arm until he cried out , ‘ What was that for ? ’
20 Riven half expected to see a crocodile hanging from the ceiling , but instead there were bulbs of garlic and bunches of other herbs which he could not identify .
21 But to his surprise the drink was light , young , and faintly flavoured with honey , together with another taste , so subtle that he could not identify it .
22 I picked her out almost as soon as she arrived , the only woman present whom I did not know or , in the case of George 's sisters , could not identify .
23 The Minister made a half-hearted attempt to justify that claim , but he could not identify anything that he or the Government had positively done .
24 Blake found the continuous stark colours and the bare , uninhabited world disturbing in a way he could not identify .
25 He could not identify the man he had spoken to and did not know his name .
26 He could not mention it because it was not known in the Latin West before the revival of learning in the ‘ renaissance of the twelfth century ’ ( a useful term due to the American medievalist Charles Homer Haskins , who introduced it in 1927 ) .
27 The school , of course , had existed for some years now , ever since the Factory Act which her father could not mention without turning purple , had thought it advisable for factory children to be given some education , feeling that an hour or two a week per child , perhaps , of reading , writing and arithmetic , would not go amiss .
28 Something you could not mention before the men , perhaps ? ’
29 By now Modigliani could not transform overnight into a conventional husband , and Jeanne accepted him with his failings .
30 The possibility of Japanese defence forces taking over after the peace treaty was opposed by MacArthur : it would be a violation of existing commitments , would be contrary to SCAP policies hitherto and in any event could not transform Japan into a significant military power .
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