Example sentences of "it [was/were] the " in BNC.
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| 31 | If it were the case that some of the remaining words were radically different from the approximate values for shape and length they could be removed from the list of candidates . |
| 32 | However , some 25 feet down there is a side-door , which opens into passage 24 as if it were the eastern door in the Throne Room . |
| 33 | America has lost patience with the Vance-Owen plan , and now rattles the ‘ lift and strike ’ strategy as if it were the only weapon in its armoury . |
| 34 | Loosely linked to it were the emerging environmentalist movements ( the link being forged by a deep suspicion of advanced technology which had raised the spectre of nuclear holocaust and then manifested itself in the devastation inflicted on Vietnam ) . |
| 35 | By the eighteenth century growing sugar and carrying out the first stages of refining it were the main economic activities on the islands . |
| 36 | Close and balance the TAB as if it were the end of the day 's business , adding and reconciling all totals : |
| 37 | This argument might hold if it were the case that affectivity were obscure and incomprehensible . |
| 38 | I have the feeling , too , that the great object of the recording engineers here has been to present the full sound-range from the faintest pianissimo to the most thunderous triple- forte , and to ensure also that we hear as it were the furthest tip of the singers ' sibilants and the deepest reverberation of the bass drum . |
| 39 | Pitted against it were the great princes , some with ambition to achieve political and legal independence of the crown . |
| 40 | But Nick said , ‘ Hallo , Mister Johnny , ’ and went up to him as if it were the easiest and most natural thing in the world . |
| 41 | And of course it was the first thing Hepzibah said , turning pink and steamy from the stove and smiling as if it were the most natural thing in the world that Carrie and Nick should appear in her kitchen at precisely this minute . |
| 42 | Joynson-Hicks announced this to the Cabinet as though it were the end of constitutional government . |
| 43 | The upshot of these various strategies by employers was to pose a real threat to the future of the male piece-workers , " who in Edinburgh only get as it were the crumbs that fall from the girls " table … the girls get all the work and the men are thrown into the street " ( a union man ) . |
| 44 | George Buchanan also contends that it is the people who are the ultimate source of the laws : " the Law is more powerful than the King , and the People more powerful than the Law " for " the People is as it were the Parent of the Law , certainly the Author thereof . " |
| 45 | The window in the bedroom was very small and all he could see through it were the roof-tops lit , as the previous night , by a full moon . |
| 46 | where the box-arrow is used to symbolise the subjunctive conditional construction in English ‘ If it were the case that … , it would be the case that … |
| 47 | ‘ When they had that first trouble , Anna finding out about the prince and carrying on as if it were the end of the world , Constanza must have been about five or six ; she does n't even remember ; Mena does , every minute of it . |
| 48 | The first tourists to come to it were the townspeople of Bayonne , who traditionally made their way to Biarritz to bathe , by donkey . |
| 49 | When great masses of stone and timber fell , the face with the two dints in the nose became obscured : anon struggled out of the smoke again , as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis , burning at the stake and contending with the fire . |
| 50 | It was as if it were the most natural thing in the world … |
| 51 | Then , as though it were the most natural thing in the world , she heated up a kettle of pool water to do the washing up . |
| 52 | She spun to find a little bald woman — Chesarynth 's mind seized upon the woman 's finger-socket as though it were the badge of some sisterhood — and said , ‘ Yes . ’ |
| 53 | Ideas about the abnormality of disabled people that arise out of research based on adding together the particular psychological attributes of individual disabled people are then systematically misleading , since they fail to include ‘ social forces , structural features of society , institutional factors and so on ’ ( Lukes , 1973 , p. 122 ) in their explanations — in other words , because they treat disability as if it were the same thing as impairment . |
| 54 | Her facial skin had absorbed it as if it were the most expensive cosmetic cream . |
| 55 | He was resting his huge hand on June 's angled knee as casually as if it were the arm of a chair . |
| 56 | For if it were the man himself would crumble . |
| 57 | In the evening they went walking , hand in hand , as if it were the first love for each of them . |
| 58 | After a couple of sentences he went into the present tense , which was a habit he had in speaking of the past , as if it were the plot of some play he was about to do . |
| 59 | She glared at the telephone dial as if it were the young man 's face and held the receiver away from her ear . |
| 60 | He watched Tessa start reluctantly down the stairs , cradling the open suitcase in her arms , then went back into the flat , wishing it were the middle of the night once more . |