Example sentences of "they [was/were] [verb] [prep] [be] [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | When such ‘ dispositive ’ or ‘ objective ’ regimes were accepted as being in the general public interest they were said to be binding erga omnes . |
| 2 | Compared to glassfibre boats they were said to be heavy , slow , unmanoeuvrable and , because they bent rather than broke , dangerous . |
| 3 | They were said to be fearless swordsmen and able to shoot a man between the eyes at a hundred paces . |
| 4 | Though his critics maintain they were trying to be constructive and wanted him to stay , Sutton was convinced that the criticism had been organized in advance as a warning that if he did not go , as Pilger was demanding , they would make life hell for him . |
| 5 | This period around 1967 was the time of the big change-over in the airline business from piston engines to jets , so it was clear that the programme I had selfishly pursued for my own good was in fact a proper course to follow for all Ops inspectors if they were to continue to be able to do their work effectively . |
| 6 | The New York Times of Nov. 19 reported that the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps had recently issued a new ruling requiring all its graduates to sign an affidavit saying that they were liable to be discharged and forced to pay back their scholarship if they were discovered to be homosexual . |
| 7 | The Home Office sent a detective to report on the movements of ‘ the French people ’ — they were assumed to be foreign as they did not have a Somerset accent . |
| 8 | In addition they were perceived to be inefficient , measured in terms of productivity , and also unprofitable , causing a drain on public finances . |
| 9 | And with those computers they were bound to be receptive . ’ |
| 10 | Both Warnie and Minto were jealous of anyone who claimed Jack 's love ; this meant that they were bound to be jealous of one another , since for both of them Jack was the most important person in the universe . |
| 11 | The party 's spin-doctors had remained sceptical about the polls , but they were expecting to be able to argue that the Conservatives had lost their mandate , even if they were clinging to power in a hung parliament . |
| 12 | I knew that they were sincere and above all that they were meant to be helpful . |
| 13 | Most of all , although they were meant to be secret , these were secrets that were fairly indifferently kept ; if , indeed , they were kept at all . |
| 14 | They were meant to be devoid of personal feelings , deadpan , like lawyers who had to defend a case they did n't believe in , who went home at the end of the day leaving all their patients ' foibles filed away in their consulting rooms . |
| 15 | Indeed in The Times article already quoted Roger Scruton was particularly scornful of the Vice-Chancellors for their apparent readiness to change : they were accused of being interested only in the quantity , not the quality , of students ; and of being happy to lower their standards , and offer as items in university courses ‘ subjects ’ which have no proved intellectual value . |
| 16 | The discretion was for the District Courts to exercise , but they were urged to be sensitive to the interests expressed in the Convention . |
| 17 | He criticised the system of screening and the appeals tribunal for refugees due to be sent back , saying they were forbidden to be present , allowed no legal representation , and were not told the reasons for decisions . |
| 18 | Jewel Lafontant , the United States co-ordinator for refugee affairs , said on March 16 that the United States would accept half of any new Vietnamese boat people fleeing to Hong Kong , as long as they were considered to be genuine refugees ; only 11 per cent of those as yet screened in the colony had been classified as such . |
| 19 | The room they were taken to was bare , panelled and had a stone floor , but had been hastily equipped with stools and benches and tables for the Patriarch 's visit . |
| 20 | They were found to be harmless and the drums were removed . |
| 21 | On Aug. 17 , US naval vessels intercepted two Iraqi coasters in the Gulf , but allowed them to proceed after they were found to be empty ; on Aug. 18 , US vessels fired warning shots across the bows of two Iraqi tankers in the Gulf of Oman . |
| 22 | The northerners thought the others posh and ‘ mardy ’ ( affected ) , while in return they were found to be coarse and vulgar . |
| 23 | They were found to be wet through but well . |
| 24 | They were known to be present in all good mines — indeed their absence was not a good omen . |
| 25 | It would have been more usual to have asked her with careful casualness to wait behind after the meeting but what he had to say was private and he had been trying for some weeks now to cut down the number of times when they were known to be alone together . |
| 26 | In a recent report , the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution concluded that potatoes , for example , might become troublesome weeds if they were engineered to be tolerant of frosts , blight and herbicides . |
| 27 | They were expected to be decorative and subservient . |
| 28 | In experiments on rats it has been shown that where experimenters expected rats to be maze-bright , the rats fulfilled their expectation and where they were expected to be maze-dull the rats also fulfilled expectations . |
| 29 | Every now and again people would step neatly aside while the person they were talking to was sick on the floor . |
| 30 | They were thought to be suitable for working on any part of the system . |