Example sentences of "[was/were] [adv] a " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Indeed , one wonders sometimes whether the apparent simplicity of such political remedies has , in some peculiar way , affected the diagnosis of the supposed ‘ sickness ’ in the first place ( undesirable qualities , low levels of skill , weak subject expertise ) to which those remedies were presumably a response ; whether the remedies have produced the sickness , rather than vice versa . |
| 2 | ‘ But there were rather a lot of people about at the moorings this morning . |
| 3 | Leviticus was happy with the country , thought here were rather a lot of blacks around . |
| 4 | ‘ The shops were rather a home from home , not the most efficient of places , ’ says Major Bourne-Arton . |
| 5 | The shoes , though , were altogether a different matter . |
| 6 | Despite the higher standard of living they were offering most of their inhabitants , they were economically a little too isolated to attract much attention . |
| 7 | The detached , amused part of Phoebe sometimes thought that her main feeling at these parties was a wish that she , and everyone else too , would dare to improve the quality of the wine , but they were all too self-consciously afraid of being mistaken for Yuppies , despite the fact they were mostly a little too old and slightly too poor . |
| 8 | The art students were mostly a bunch of individualistic , head-in-the-sand poseurs . |
| 9 | They were mostly a little lonely and disorientated , enjoying none of the ( few ) advantages of the ordinary boarding-school , and too few in number to feel any sense of corporate identity . |
| 10 | It could be a useful raw material if there were locally a need for mild alkali in this form . |
| 11 | As in Egypt , aromatics were literally a way of life . |
| 12 | The first row of the audience were literally a few feet from my feet . |
| 13 | In these , according to Engels , ideas and institutions were merely a direct reflection of economy and technology . |
| 14 | If it were merely a handful of Irish psychopaths against us , they might be foiled by a piece of pasteboard with a photograph and some numbers stamped on it . |
| 15 | Maxwell Fyfe 's guidelines were never meant to be taken seriously but were merely a piece of bureaucratic window-dressing . |
| 16 | However if evil were merely a hateful and external power without echo in the hearts of the good , then someone might have to take the Ring to the Cracks of Doom , but it need not be Frodo : Gandalf could be trusted with it , while whoever went would have only to distrust his enemies , not his friends and not himself . |
| 17 | Their crimes were merely a low-grade reflection of the competitive and individualistic element in capitalism ; they indulged in an activity which , even in the form of mob violence , could never be effective in the revolutionary movement and , if not crushed , they were more likely to serve as ‘ part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue . ’ |
| 18 | The two of them were merely a couple of outstanding lady tennis players , one of whom had won Wimbledon . |
| 19 | Lévi-Strauss ' famous objections to Sartre , which appeared in the last chapter of The Savage Mind ( 1962 ) , are sometimes represented as if they were merely a structuralist attack on Marxism . |
| 20 | Once he had ( rightly ) rejected that argument , he treated the matter as one for the unfettered exercise of his discretion , in which W. 's views were merely a relatively unimportant factor , and expressed the view that his real choice was between the conflicting medical views of Dr. M. , the consultant psychiatrist in whose care W. had been for over a year , and Dr. G. , supported in the event by Dr. D. , another consultant psychiatrist with specialist experience in the field of anorexia nervosa . |
| 21 | Even at their best in the early '80s , with the great Alison Phillips on drums , they were merely a poor man 's Fall/Three Johns/Creepers , although always reliable for a good live set . |
| 22 | If it were merely a matter of eloquence , or energy or conviction , the education system , like other male institutions , would have been transformed by women already . |
| 23 | We have watched Eastern Europe grapple for freedom and the liberty that we enjoy , yet I have watched the House of Commons talk solemnly as if this were merely a question of a pile of money at one end of a table or the issuing of financial instruments . |
| 24 | We have watched eastern Europe grapple for freedom and the liberty that we enjoy , yet I have heard the House of Commons talk solemnly as if this were merely a question of a pile of money at one end of a table or the issuing of financial intruments . |
| 25 | He resisted , however , the notion that the polytechnics were merely a new breed of university . |
| 26 | Even at their best in the early '80s , with the great Alison Phillips on drums , they were merely a poor man 's Fall/Three Johns/Creepers , although always reliable for a good live set . |
| 27 | But formal requirements of this kind were merely a recognition of reality , of the fact that few diplomats could hope to live on their salaries . |
| 28 | If it were only a matter of alcohol , would a body care ? |
| 29 | At the siege of Belle-Isle I was there all the while ; All the while , all the while , At the siege of Belle-Isle Until last month these lines were only a nursery-rhyme to me , accompanied in my memory by a crude illustration of a tower by the sea and square-rigged warship balancing on humped waves . |
| 30 | We were only a metre from the only road , but the number of cars that passed was easily beaten by the number of coffees drunk . |