Example sentences of "do better than [verb] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Certainly to explain the Incarnation in a quarter of an hour over the air is a tall order , but Lewis could surely have done better than to say , ‘ If you want to get the hang of it , think how you would like to become a slug or a crab . ’ |
| 2 | Mr Blum tried his supporters saying they had done better than predicted . |
| 3 | If you want special dishes with a difference that still have a sense of occasion and which are both tasty and good for you , then you could n't do better than choosing Tilda Basmati rice . |
| 4 | To understand the importance of these procedural developments , we can hardly do better than conclude with a comparison : Blackstone 's graphic and dismaying picture of the damage being done in England by entails . |
| 5 | Before she could ask whom he intended to marry this time he said , ‘ After you left and I had that final bust-up with Marc I rang Marianne and told her she could do better than marry a penniless school-kid . ’ |
| 6 | So whatever level of runner you are you ca n't do better than get into the Mizuno powerhouse . |
| 7 | In Britain you could not do better than to pick out from the varied products of the author John Wainwright , an ex-policeman , those of his books that are in the police procedural mode . |
| 8 | ‘ I do n't think you can do better than follow the great masters , even if you ca n't hope to emulate them . |
| 9 | We can do better than taking simple means of three , however . |
| 10 | In order to form an estimate of both the range and the limitations of the record of landholding we can not do better than commence by examining the section devoted to a single parish , Empingham in Rutland . |
| 11 | Reading around for background to Shakespeare is valuable , and you ca n't do better than begin with the Harley Granville Barker 's Prefaces to Shakespeare , which analyse the plays from both a scholarly and dramatic angle , without being ponderously academic . |
| 12 | If your interest in the past centres on some figure in particular from days gone by you could perhaps not do better than to consider whether he or she would make a detective , as the American writer Lilian de la Torre did with a series of short stories about Dr Sam Johnson , Detector . |
| 13 | I can not do better than quote a semi-paragraph from The Grail Legend by Emma Jung and Marie Louise Von Franz ( English translation 1971 ) : |
| 14 | Asked to sum up in a sentence the essence of his long career as a reporter , he considers the question for a few seconds , laughs , and says : ‘ I do n't think I could do better than quote my old friend the late Jimmy Robinson , who was the Daily Mail 's man in Belfast for many years . |
| 15 | I can not do better than compare a shoal of bream to a troop of soldiers : a compact , neat , orderly and efficient body of fish that patrol a water when the business of feeding is foremost in their minds . |
| 16 | " If that 's the trouble , you could n't do better than to entrust her to the skilled understanding of the Sisters . " |
| 17 | If you must , then you ca n't do better than to buy a plastic ‘ Snake ’ ; but we doubt if you 'll have the same degree of reverence for it as for our other suggestions in nylon . |
| 18 | If having encountered , say , the Rite , Petrushka , and Firebird , you wish to make further inroads into Stravinsky 's compositional genius , you could hardly do better than invest in this splendid disc . |
| 19 | It was France 's inexplicable failure to do better than draw with Cyprus in Limassol that helped Scotland to qualify for Italia '90 ahead of Michel Platini 's team . |
| 20 | But if , as seems increasingly likely , Mr Clinton will soon tell Congress and the public that American fighting men will have to be sent to Bosnia , he will have to do better than say that he has thought things over carefully . |
| 21 | Murray ( SDLP ) picked up transfers from all parties but not enough to do better than to become runner-up . |
| 22 | The main opposition Democratic Party ( DP ) and the Unification National Party ( UNP — formed in January 1992 ) both did better than had been expected . |
| 23 | Neither Pasok nor Synaspismos seemed capable of capitalizing on the unpopularity of the government 's austerity measures , and the ND did better than expected in the municipal elections of October 1990 [ see p. 37785 ] . |
| 24 | The first acknowledgement of a possible opportunity usually applies to an area in which a company does better than budgeted . |