Example sentences of "were about [prep] be " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Having learnt its worst fears were about to be realised , that it would be handed over to Chinese rule in 1997 without external protections or guarantees , it immediately put the best possible face on its situation . |
| 2 | As soon as Moran saw McQuaid on his feet again he knew the evening , all the evenings , were about to be broken up and he withdrew back into himself . |
| 3 | The company , whose profits for the year to September rose by 16 per cent to £1.66 million , said commercial opportunities , particularly for radio , were about to be expanded significantly . |
| 4 | The company , whose profits for the year to September rose by 16 per cent to £1.66 million , said commercial opportunities , particularly for radio , were about to be expanded significantly . |
| 5 | The governments of Christian-dominated Lebanon and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan feared that Nasser-inspired coups were about to be sprung in Beirut and Amman . |
| 6 | He said it correctly suspecting that the Conservatives were about to be pitched back into opposition by Lord Aberdeen 's coalition of Peelites , Whigs and Liberals . |
| 7 | By 1845 the Pennines between Manchester and Sheffield were about to be conquered , and a terminus in Sheffield was opened at Bridgehouses on July 14th of that year . |
| 8 | She calmed down , and told me that she had a sudden impression , walking across the little valley , of women and children in great danger ; nothing else , but a terrible feeling that women and children were about to be harmed . |
| 9 | If the crowd anticipate passé renditions of classic ME songs like ‘ I Melt With You ’ they were about to be disillusioned . |
| 10 | They followed the Irishman and other suspects for weeks and launched a series of dramatic raids only when they feared bombs were about to be planted . |
| 11 | In 1968 , the watershed year of the student riots in Paris , when most of the new generation of radicals were denouncing the Labour Party as hopelessly fuddy-duddy , he had joined up , believing it would one day become the focus for a new alliance of Right-On movements , Now , more than a decade on , his dream was starting to come true and the new radical politics were about to be released on an unsuspecting populace — with mixed results . |
| 12 | The corporate power-brokers who dominated Los Angeles a decade ago when the Olympics were about to be staged — the oil moguls , the aerospace kings , the old movie-studio emperors — have now mostly left the scene : their firms broken up , in the hands of bureaucratic managers or wholly owned by foreigners . |
| 13 | One of the ways — perhaps the chief one — in which 1945 — 90 did indeed make a distinct period was that in 1990 those limits were about to be stretched by the provision of satellite services . |
| 14 | Mr Bigg said speed restrictions on rail lines in East Anglia were about to be introduced because there was not enough money for line maintenance . |
| 15 | As soon as you saw that you were about to be struck , you stood at attention and waited for the blows . |
| 16 | The snuffles and crunches of some unknown thing convinced my grandad that we were about to be mugged . |
| 17 | But he took such duties seriously ; he often had to give his opinion on the work of young poets who were about to be dispatched into the war : and he knew that his comments might be the last they ever received . |
| 18 | and the fives courts were about to be demolished . |
| 19 | Thucydides , an acute social historian when he wants to be , remarks that ‘ most of the dealings between the Spartans and their helots were of a precautionary character ’ ( iv.80 ) , and tells a suitably laconic story of two thousand specially manly helots who were garlanded and led round the temples as if they were about to be given their freedom ; they were never seen again and nobody knew what happened to them . |
| 20 | They took their seats on canvas chairs which were placed side by side on the strip of red tiling , as if they were about to be photographed or to review a marching column . |
| 21 | Detectives believe they were about to be shipped to the manufacturing base in a spare room of the house in Highgate . |
| 22 | You were about to be hauled into his car , whatever your mind decided . ’ |
| 23 | It somehow seemed to be a cutting-off point , as if they were about to be flown away from any contact with civilisation . |
| 24 | On Dec. 19 Yeltsin returned early from an official visit to China [ see also p. 39236 ] , apparently because of fears that conservative figures were about to be promoted to government posts . |
| 25 | Prior Tuathal pulled his hood absently over his reddening crown and sat , his chin in the sun , bending his sharp intelligence to the exchange between the Earl and the King by which all his theories were about to be tested . |
| 26 | The picture he had painted was so vivid that once again she felt as if she were about to be sick . |
| 27 | Roughly halfway between the target and the coast the rear gunner signalled that we were about to be attacked and my ham-fisted evasive action severed the repair that the Night engineer had made to the aileron controls . |
| 28 | Thus all things were bearing an equal strain and we were westward-bound when a frantic signal from the rear gunner warned me that we were about to be attacked again , and my heavy-handed evasive action severed the aileron control repair . |
| 29 | The prays … the dreams of the skipper the Reverend Bob Shepton were about to be fulfilled … |
| 30 | They were about to be handed the photographic opportunity most tourists only dream of . |