Example sentences of "[conj] [modal v] have been [verb] [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | ( Even our typewriters are mechanical horrors that should have been declared obsolete decades ago . ) |
| 2 | The North Sea Oil bonanza — money that should have been spent encouraging and harnessing the potential of young people to live in a new , modern world — was instead squandered paying them to stay on the dole and to stay away from schools , colleges and training . |
| 3 | And then , walking behind her at a rather greater distance than might have been thought usual , came Linnet Gage in a dress that fell from her tiny waist as gracefully and naturally as a waterfall , each diaphanous tulle frill overlapping the other with perfect simplicity , her face as delicate and beautiful as rare porcelain , her blue eyes clouded by a dream of remote but tantalizing sweetness , which also touched the corners of her lips , raising them very slightly in a smile of which every man present must have wished to know the secret . |
| 4 | Geometric abstraction has been a mainstay in the art of Valerie Jaudon for many years : she has worked more patterned variations on the relationship between the curved and the straight line than might have been thought possible . |
| 5 | He also saw two carriages that might have been carrying senior officers , and he flirted with the idea that one of the carriages might have belonged to the Emperor himself . |
| 6 | All this is important because it meant that by the end of the 1930s British town planning was in a stronger position than would have been thought likely , to respond to the national emergency of physical destruction , which led to an unprecedented period of planned rebuilding . |
| 7 | Two thirds of those with baseline hypoxaemia had been born preterm and may have been suffering mild , clinically unapparent chronic lung disease . |
| 8 | Zhu was reportedly dismissed because of his links with liberal policies , and might have been held responsible for the participation of union members in the pro-democracy protests of May and June . |