Example sentences of "could [not/n't] [vb infin] [pron] " in BNC.
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| 1 | This work demonstrated some of the special problems which have to be solved to design good GUIs for GIS : thus , an icon of a single pine tree caused some confusion when presented to a forester since he could not identify its species ! |
| 2 | Sonar made interesting contacts but could not identify them directly , while passive underwater photography ( photographing whatever passes a given spot ) had the potential to reveal essential detail but could not be expected to make contact without a much sounder basis for deploying the cameras . |
| 3 | Owing to Amal 's seclusion as a female , she could not identify her attackers by name , only that they were acquaintances of her brother . |
| 4 | The Minister made a half-hearted attempt to justify that claim , but he could not identify anything that he or the Government had positively done . |
| 5 | They could not identify my writing . |
| 6 | I could not identify my feelings , they must have been those of shock . |
| 7 | But to his surprise the drink was light , young , and faintly flavoured with honey , together with another taste , so subtle that he could not identify it . |
| 8 | He could not mention it because it was not known in the Latin West before the revival of learning in the ‘ renaissance of the twelfth century ’ ( a useful term due to the American medievalist Charles Homer Haskins , who introduced it in 1927 ) . |
| 9 | It was symptomatic rather than part of the train of thought that led to his decision : Britain , as a great power , could not leave her security in the hands of the Americans , who , however friendly , could veer so unpredictably from generous international collaboration to self-centred isolationism . |
| 10 | LATE at night an elderly woman rang Christine Hall to say that she had refused much-needed hospital treatment because she could not leave her dog , Holly . |
| 11 | Jack Carey , an old friend of the family , had wanted to marry Susan years ago ; but she , of course , could not leave her father . |
| 12 | Alice thought she could not leave her only child , her baby daughter , that she might never see again , without holding her once more , without at least giving her a last kiss . |
| 13 | She asked him why he could not leave her alone , in view of what the other man had already done to her , but he turned off the lights and told her to undress . |
| 14 | Even if you were only a few hundred miles away instead of a few thousand I could not leave her . |
| 15 | He could not leave her here even had he the courage to go up into that vast nothingness above … |
| 16 | But the priest said she could not live till morning , so I could not leave her . ’ |
| 17 | However , he knew he could not leave her now . |
| 18 | She would not , could not leave him for this boy ! |
| 19 | I could not leave him now . |
| 20 | But having got so far , she could not leave it there . |
| 21 | She could not leave it . |
| 22 | Hebbert and McFall do , Hebbert decided , and he persuaded his partner they could not leave it at that after such a long flog up the mountainside . |
| 23 | They could not leave it because their reproductive processes depended on it . |
| 24 | ‘ Good God , there was a time I saw him — still but a child , to be sure — playing his fingers in her hair with such warmth and love in his face , such concentrated attention , as if it so fascinated him he could not leave it alone . |
| 25 | But she knew then that , plagued and plagued again by the same thought during her fretful waking night-time hours , she just could not leave it . |
| 26 | He said that he could not leave his post but that if I was prepared to wait he would ask somebody else to escort me . |
| 27 | Although ‘ t is easy to see that he could not leave you behind , nor take his eyes off you for a moment . |
| 28 | On 5 September last year his girlfriend , Ann Tierney , could not wake him after staying the night with him and he was dead on arrival at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary . |
| 29 | A police spokesman said : ‘ He told them he could not wake his mummy who was found on the ground floor . ’ |
| 30 | could not temper itself , but needs she must bewray her outrageous lust , and in an inconvenient time of the year , despising all discommodities of the way and weather , and all danger of thieves , she betook herself headlong to her journey with such a company as no man of any honest degree would have adventured his life and his goods among them . |