Example sentences of "[been] for the [adj] [noun pl] " in BNC.

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1 ‘ If it had not been for the Liberal Democrats , the government would have lost . ’
2 He would have been handsome had it not been for the close-set eyes and the petulant cast to his mouth .
3 Yet his criticism has not , by and large , been for the tabloid newspapers whose standards fell to new lows during the 1980s ; instead , he has reserved his bile for investigative journalists , particularly if they worked for television , and for those newspaper reporters who decided to boycott his lobby briefings .
4 Nevertheless , the resolution might still have won a majority had it not been for the stolen goods in the outhouse .
5 ‘ If it had n't been for the native Africans in the community who rallied round , looked after my wife and kept leaving food parcels outside the door we would have been sunk .
6 This is a good example of a local commemoration which almost slipped through the net , had it not been for the sleuthing abilities of north east enthusiast David Thompson .
7 There then followed a decline , and the old arts would have been lost , had it not been for the Buddhist monks who kept the arts alive in their mountain refuges .
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