Example sentences of "[was/were] a [adj] " in BNC.

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1 But there they were , in their thousands , or it may have been millions , and they were a horrific threat to the survival of humanity on this planet .
2 Yesterday an FBI agent , Richard Swensen , said the lights , mounted on Sunday night , were a defensive measure to blind the cult members to the whereabouts of the more than 400 law enforcement officers around the compound .
3 I suspect that even in those days you were a workaholic .
4 ‘ I thought you were a workaholic ?
5 I always had the impression you were a workaholic . ’
6 But Muriel writes off these youngsters with their strange clothes and weird hairstyles as if they were a lower kind of creature altogether .
7 Imagine , because they were a lower grade they 'd meant nothing you see .
8 Anglo-Saxon law recognized that a peasant who prospered became a thegn and the thegns were a wide class including folk who would be called knights and folk who would be leading barons after the Conquest .
9 Following the talk there were a wide range of questions demonstrating the concern the audience felt for threatened wildlife and the environment .
10 Thus it is said ( though still with problems of interpretation ) that the bards were a specific order ranking below the priests and the seers , though composing with them a specific privileged caste .
11 In an ideal world , it would now be the preferred method of evaluating brain pathology unless there were a specific contraindication for example , the presence of ferro-magnetic clips on intracranial vessels .
12 As soon as she finds one she paralyses it , using her long sting as though it were a hypodermic syringe loaded with anaesthetic .
13 They were a friendly family and very helpful when Breeze , seeing them take so much trouble over finding a suitable board , told them what she hoped to do with it .
14 He saw with pleasure that she looked cold but not frightened ; she was beginning to swim more slowly and for the first time with trust , as if the water were a friendly and not an alien element .
15 Rosen shot down most effectively the old fallacy that somehow or other the 1950s , the era of the Grammar Schools and Beacon Readers , were a golden age for children 's books and childhood literacy .
16 Some of them were a sorry sight !
17 Oh that were a that 'll be bound to come .
18 In the main they were a semi-educated band with neither trade nor union affiliation , and greedy — the occasional client was brought to financial ruin by undertakers charging over-inflated and extortionate prices for an unnecessary spectacle that few could either afford or understand .
19 Nobody is yet convinced that he really would be willing to raise interest rates if there were a prolonged run on the pound sometime this year .
20 The years that followed , until his death in 1929 , were a prolonged process of disillusionment and despair .
21 I got , a shopping bag , that were a creamy colour with wi A's all over it .
22 It was , of course , the perfect training for a housewife , even if the house in question were a stately home .
23 The sand , shingle and shells were a prehistoric beach , preserved somehow over millions of years — and it took a breakdown for me to discover it .
24 Diana and her friends were a clean-living set — none of them smoked or drank much — and when they went out , it tended to be in a group .
25 Crosby 's acceleration and close control were a frequent worry to Everton on the right but seven minutes before half-time the winger only seemed to have got past Snodin by fouling him .
26 Often , we would disturb huge salmon , red-dressed for spawning , and I suspect that during the days of the POW camp , salmon were a frequent supplement to meagre wartime rations .
27 From the end of the period of the Kings , public penitential festivals were a frequent necessity .
28 Perhaps his own impatient temperament made this especially essential in his case : I myself fled to the wilderness when it proved no longer possible to live harmoniously with men , who , admittedly , were a frequent obstacle to my inner joy .
29 And the place smelled too , of hot bodies , hot electrical equipment , and the fumes of whisky ; not surprising that , considering the amount of the stuff they swallowed during the half-hour he had spent in that crowded room full of people who talked to one another in an incomprehensible private language , and at him as though he were a stupid child when they explained how the program would run .
30 The essential properties of an ice-house were a cool dry place — usually but not always underground — with insulation from the sun 's heat and good drainage .
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