Example sentences of "would [verb] [be] unable " in BNC.
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| 1 | We had moved to the edges of our previously closed system of thought and action , both physically and philosophically , and almost implicitly came to recognize that the ‘ foundation metaphors ’ which Turner identifies as being crucial to transformational experience of liminality were making paradigmatic statements about our own cultural format ; although I know we would have been unable to articulate this . |
| 2 | If they had just looked at the laws governing slavery , as had done both their contemporaries and more recent social scientists , they would have been unable to distinguish between slavery as a minor and rare form of exploitation , on the one hand , supplying occasional domestic and sexual luxuries , and slavery as the basis of whole economies , on the other hand , where most of production is carried out by slave labour . |
| 3 | Had she been asked to account for her day Elisabeth Danziger would have been unable to do so . |
| 4 | Later , in the 1860s , Persigny remarked to the Emperor that the charges on the civil list were enormous — to which Napoleon III replied that had so much money not been allotted in the first place he would have been unable to fulfil all the demands which were made upon him . |
| 5 | A few years ago Jo would have been unable to resist a put-down , but the Hollywood brat had grown up and knew how and when to be gracious . |
| 6 | Very often , even though the planes came back safely , there would be dead and injured on board , and sometimes a damaged aircraft would have been unable to release its bombs either over the target or in the North Sea on the way home and would have to land back at base with the bombs still on board . |
| 7 | He must have known that in her hurt and disillusion she would have been unable to work , to do her vital revision . |
| 8 | At the time he was engaged in resisting his extradition to the US and would have been unable to attend . |
| 9 | This all sounds like dashing stuff , but if his sheer audacity had not carried the day , he would have been unable to defend himself against so many . |
| 10 | He pulled a sheet from one of the beds , spread it on the floor , opened up wardrobes and drawers , scooped up armfuls of clothes — there was no time to make any kind of selection and even if there had been he would have been unable to pick and choose , they were all women 's clothing — dumped them on the sheet , tied up the four corners , lugged the bundle up the companionway and handed it over to Riley . |
| 11 | Mr Museveni would have been unable to stay in power were it not for the economic success unfolding around him . |
| 12 | Dicynodonts , with their small body size , sprawling reptilian gait and lack of internal thermoregulatory mechanisms , would have been unable to migrate over long distances . |
| 13 | If the temple had been stripped of its wealth and its income from land , then the priestly college would have been unable to maintain such a large establishment , since the rising level of the water-table would have necessitated major engineering works . |
| 14 | The ASH stand at the Green Show attracted a lot of other interest too , and our staff would have been unable to cope without the tremendous effort made by West Midlands ASH volunteers . |
| 15 | Most , it had to be recognised , would have been unable to resist a heavy and sustained bombardment . |
| 16 | Bacon had little interest in English neo-romanticism and Minton would have been unable to accept Bacon 's nihilism , his insistence that man is a futile being who has to play out the game dependent not on reason but chance . |
| 17 | If the pilot 's warning had not prepared him to recognise them , Rostov would have been unable to distinguish the Simonova 's reception party from the deckhands working around them . |
| 18 | For example if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different , stars either would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium , or else they would not have exploded . |
| 19 | To achieve a reduction , however , the burden of proof rests upon the buyer to show that the seller would have been unable to comply with the essential terms of the contract if it had not been terminated , Gill & Duffus v. Berger & Co. ( 1984 H.L. ) . |
| 20 | Without the passage of this legislation the government would have been unable to refinance the debt , to meet payments to defence contractors , or to pay federal employees . |
| 21 | Without this exodus of labour from Southern Europe , which allowed it to reconstruct a reserve army at home , West German capitalism would have been unable to achieve its formidable expansion of outputs in the 1960s without a catastrophic decline in the rate of profit . |
| 22 | Thirteen would have been unable to cope with the elimination regimen for social reasons or because of poor understanding , eight had tight small intestinal strictures , and eight were on high dose steroids ( both of which would have made the results difficult to interpret ) , four refused , two were treated for postoperative fistulas , two were pregnant , and one was treated for extensive pyoderma gangrenosum and had no gastrointestinal symptoms . |
| 23 | Using the most fundamental measure of poverty , the " breadline " , Professor Hay has estimated that over the years 1760 to 1802 in a normal year around 10 per cent of Staffordshire families would have been unable to buy sufficient bread over the year even if they had spent their whole earnings on it . |
| 24 | If this scrapping had not occurred then capitalists would have been unable to find workers to operate new machines and would have been forced to cut back accumulation sharply . |