Example sentences of "this [was/were] the [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | The seaman — Gustave continued as if this were the best story he had heard for many years — apparently claimed that he had no notion of how the section of mast had reached the position in which it was found . |
| 2 | The three best known examples of this were the sacred bulls : Apis , herald of Ptah at Memphis ; Mnevis , herald of Re at Heliopolis ; and Buchis , herald of Monthu at Armant . |
| 3 | After a while the whistle is repeated — by the same blackbird or by its mate — but always as if this were the first time it had occurred to him to whistle ; if this is a dialogue , each remark is uttered after long reflection . |
| 4 | He glanced at her , wondering if this were the first she had heard of the proposal . |
| 5 | She had clearly been a very good-looking woman when younger , and even now was handsome ; paradoxically , the artifices she employed to emphasise this were the very features to strike a false note . |
| 6 | This was the classic showman speaking and on this occasion he was directing his remarks directly at those intellectuals whom his films had brought into cinemas for the first time . |
| 7 | This was the classic method of waging war . |
| 8 | This was the classic method of brainwashing , after all , used by interrogators , priests , and psychoanalysts alike . |
| 9 | This was the stark warning given by Professor David Harvey of Newcastle University , when he presented the first in a series of Northern Foods ' milk industry papers . |
| 10 | But this was the hanging gardens of Hampden Babylon , the land where agents rule , books do n't balance and credit cards are cut up in front of your eyes . |
| 11 | This was the best room , the Aladdin 's cave forbidden to all but his parents , the place where wondrous treasures were kept behind locked doors and heavily shuttered windows . |
| 12 | This was the best final for some years . |
| 13 | Mother and daughter conversed in a wary , detached manner , recognising that this was the best way to handle a potentially tricky situation . |
| 14 | However , this was the best we could do and we hope that the consequent errors are not too great . |
| 15 | I was angry as hell at the time and disappointed , too , for this was a strongly Labour-controlled council , but looking back now I realize that this was the best thing that could have happened to the group , for now we could present ourselves to the people of Rotherham as a genuine minority with a grievance . |
| 16 | He claims this was the best time of his life . |
| 17 | He claims this was the best time of his life . |
| 18 | Manager Billy Bonds said : ‘ This was the best we have played away in the two and half years I have been in charge . |
| 19 | The Commission argued that this was the best system because it would avoid both tax evasion and double taxation . |
| 20 | At the end of the story significantly called Youth , a story in which Conrad calls on his own memory of the testing of ardent feelings in critical conditions in describing the last fatal , curtailed voyage of the old Judea , Marlow as narrator , sitting in comfortable middle age among men who , like him , had served an apprenticeship at sea , challenges them to deny that this was the best time of their lives : |
| 21 | It is a stately cliff of a semi in Holland Park now lashed together against a neighbouring stately semi because he found that this was the best way to double his garden space . |
| 22 | Seething with indignation and fury , she told herself that this was the best way to catch Adam off guard and discover what was going on . |
| 23 | This was the best of it , I thought ; such actions and such responses had justified my life . |
| 24 | This was the best ; it was John exactly as I remembered him , walking down a road , waiting at a bus stop , hunched inside his big coat . |
| 25 | But perhaps this was the best way , to come running out with his cousin and his friend . |
| 26 | This was the best record until the development of antisepsis by Joseph ( later first Baron ) Lister [ q.v . ] . |
| 27 | And they were grown apiece while he was away and they were better than ever and the deal was been that he had was gon na give them the best two cattle you see and this was this was the best two animals he had . |
| 28 | Few men living in Leicester were not , Theda reflected , for in her former life she had learned early that this was the best hunting country in England . |
| 29 | The members who 've joined the G M B over the past , joined the G M B because in their opinion this was the best trade union in the U K and we are very very proud of our heritage . |
| 30 | Although in some subject areas there were complaints that proposals from the colleges were too ‘ traditional ’ ( and a belief by some colleges that this was the best way to ensure success with the ‘ traditional ’ members of subject boards ) , there were developments unrelated to specific subjects that were new and — in validation terms — difficult . |