Example sentences of "can not [vb infin] [verb] that " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | If you cast a shrewd eye around the countryside in March , you can not fail to notice that spring is heralded not only by splashes of yellow celandines and pale primroses in the hedge-banks , but also by gleaming yellow diggers , hastily working their way up the watercourses to use up their allocated budget before the financial year ends on 1 April . |
| 2 | ‘ Art is a rum business ’ , thought Turner , and the attentive reader of a book about artists called Born under Saturn can not avoid thinking that artists are unpredictable while reading through its sections on misers , criminals , celibates , debauchees , suicides , melancholics and eccentrics . |
| 3 | A leader can not try to forget that he is the ‘ boss ’ by being friendly and informal with subordinates , or by consulting them before making any decision . |
| 4 | I can not resist saying that when Japan finally exchanges her peaceful simplicity , her admiration for , and artistic appreciation of , Nature 's beauties , and her contented national life , for the storm stress , and hurry of that feverish existence known to the West , she will have given up the substance for the shadow . |
| 5 | I can not help believing that the most discerning public must be interested in this work . |
| 6 | ‘ I do not wish to be hard upon poor people in great affliction ; but I can not help thinking that they have been doing for hundreds of years past something very like what the Bible calls ‘ tempting God' ’ — staking their property and their lives upon the chances or no earthquakes coming , while they ought to have known that an earthquake might come an day . ’ |
| 7 | ‘ It is a foolish idea , but one can not help thinking that the mortal remains can still feel when the immortal soul is gone . |
| 8 | With the opening of the Channel Tunnel becoming a reality , and hopefully leading to a rise in rail traffic , one can not help thinking that had the magnificiently engineered GCR survived the troubled 1960's this would have been the chosen route for this traffic . |
| 9 | Life as seen from the platform at Paddington is most varied and one can not help thinking that an official who spends most of his time there must gain a vast knowledge of human nature … |
| 10 | I can not help thinking that the booby who so completely misses the point of the question is often actuated by some hidden ( and mistaken ) motive of self-preservation . |
| 11 | But one can not help thinking that a far greater contribution to the preservation of the World 's rain forests would be made if companies could be persuaded to make their annual brochures less glossy and to print them on re-cycled paper . |
| 12 | This was followed by an interview between the President and Von Papen : and I can not help thinking that , during their conversation together , the former must have assured the latter that , so long as she could hold out against Allied demands , Turkey would abstain from hostile action towards Germany . |
| 13 | You can not help noticing that the incidence of fatalities among Boyd 's artistes seems remarkably high , even by the alarming standards of the pop business . |
| 14 | But at the same time one can not help feeling that Proofs is the kind of story that would have been better off as a three-page essay in Granta . |
| 15 | I can not help feeling that any good done might have been cancelled out by oil fires in the Gulf . |
| 16 | But one can not help feeling that the description by the author of the Gesta Francorum , himself a knight , of the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 , is a more characteristic specimen of the ‘ religion ’ of twelfth-century knights . |
| 17 | Looking back over our century one can not help feeling that despite all the research , the new drugs and the improved surgical techniques , to say nothing of the introduction of health services in many western countries , the health of our societies has declined rather than improved . |
| 18 | As one reads the various strictures of the Old Testament prophets against those who exploit their economic power , I can not help feeling that their major relevance within the U K today is to the trade union movement by the power exercised by elements within it . |
| 19 | Given the clear-sightedness of his book , and the proximity of the National Theatre to the Palace of Westminster , you can not help feeling that it might be worth giving Mr Eyre a chance as well . |
| 20 | Indeed , if it were to be as firmly and clearly drawn as some of our mentors would wish , I can not help feeling that a number of leading cases in your Lordships ' House would never have been decided the way they were . |
| 21 | The description of the facts is somewhat exiguous and I can not help feeling that if they had been fully stated the case would fall to be treated as involving a demand colore officii rather than as supporting the Woolwich principle . |
| 22 | Although the matter does not arise in this appeal because Woolwich were fully aware of all the relevant circumstances , I can not help feeling that there is some illogicality in treating as voluntary a payment by someone who justifiably believes that the demand is lawful whereas in fact it turns out to be unlawful . |
| 23 | At the same time I can not help feeling that the defence is one which ought to be used with great discretion , and that for two reasons . |
| 24 | However , it is not completely satisfactory ; one can not help feeling that there is some deeper explanation . |
| 25 | I can not help feeling that there must be a lesson here . |
| 26 | Yet , one can not help feeling that a book of this type , whatever its particular merits , has been overtaken by events and by other writings . |
| 27 | I can not help feeling that the life Anna lived was at least lived in every sense of the word , rather than spent miserably , in gossip and the petty concerns of the women around her . |
| 28 | Although he might perhaps have done better to observe Wittgenstein 's adage , ‘ Whereof one can not speak , thereon one must be silent ’ , one can not help regretting that he has not tried to be less vague about the nature of personal growth . |
| 29 | When Anthony Crosland declared that the ‘ party is over , he can not have realized that the Government 's cuts presaged a long period in which the Labour Party itself would be seriously threatened — partly because of its association with supposedly spendthrift urban policies . |
| 30 | WHEN John Boorman took on the job of co-editing this anthology , which is intended to be an annual event , and writing the chronicle of 1991 which comprises almost half its contents , he can not have imagined that he would be revealing so much about the reasons for his own creative decline . |