Example sentences of "it [was/were] the " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | The small khat traders from Djibouti , who travel the route as if it were the local bus , shrieked and angrily rearranged their shawls and robes . |
| 2 | Overlooking the point that if it were the latter he could clarify the matter on the next round , he settled for a direct raise to Four Hearts . |
| 3 | He was the one with the distant , distracted look and the voice which sounded as though it were the product of an experiment by Dr Timothy Leary . |
| 4 | The fleapit at the centre of another Rose script , The Smallest Show on Earth ( 1957 , Big Time Operators in US ) , directed by Ealing 's Basil Dearden , is eventually burnt to the ground by its old commissionaire : ‘ It were the only way were n't it ’ , he says to the cooing couple who inherited the place in a town stinking of glue from the local factory , together with staff so lost in the past that they still enjoy looking at Hepworth 's Comin ’ Thro ’ The Rye . |
| 5 | The Venerable David Silk , Archdeacon of Leicester , summing up the theological opposition , said that in ordaining women the Church of England would ‘ cease to be part of the Catholic , apostolic church and would be behaving as if it were the whole of Christianity , or a mere sect ’ . |
| 6 | The exchanges were exceptionally unfruitful because of Mr Berge 's way of delivering every reply as if it were the last word any resonable man would wish to hear on that particular matter . |
| 7 | It is no wonder that what we see becomes identified with , and spoken of as if it were the same as , what we touch . |
| 8 | A takeover was under way by the grey men and the only ones who survived it were the grey people . |
| 9 | Strange , because he , an elderly bachelor , dry and very conventional , seemed perfectly composed , as if it were the most natural thing in the world that Mrs McLaren 's white hair should be hanging about her shoulders , and that she was naked to the waist , showing all her poor sad bosom , her clothes hanging from her sodden with water . |
| 10 | ‘ Well , ’ said the home-help , ‘ it were the Warden found her , not me . |
| 11 | Asked about Labour 's attitude if it were the largest party , Mr Gould said on London Weekend Television that Mr Kinnock would accept the invitation to form a Government , would draw up a legislative programme and would put it to Parliament . |
| 12 | His daughter is played by Jane Birkin , the bilingual singer and actress , and one of the characteristic features of the film is the way the dialogue slips in and out of the two languages as if it were the most natural thing in the world . |
| 13 | The tactic used by the Commission for passing the Single European Act was to present it to the member states as if it were the only thing on offer : either take this or leave the Community . |
| 14 | The English embryologist , John Gurdon , in an extensive series of experiments performed during the 1960s , showed that if he transplanted the nucleus from one of the cells of the blastula of early toad embryo it could function as if it were the toad egg 's nucleus . |
| 15 | How often we hear one person tell another to ‘ relax , as if it were the easiest thing in the world to do ? |
| 16 | In Britain , the equipment had not been well-proven , since the only cars to employ it were the Marton cars at Blackpool , and an experimental car each at Glasgow and Leeds . |
| 17 | In some ways I think the one in the hardest position was Patsy 's husband , but he behaved as though it were the most natural thing in the world . |
| 18 | History is taught as if the industrial revolution , the most significant event since the development of agriculture , just happened , simply by the outworking of blind economic forces ; and as if the only people to be consciously aware of it were the aesthetes who reacted against its artifacts , or who , like Karl Marx , sought to analyse those forces and to predict their course . |
| 19 | The clear , vivid patterns excite the zebra 's eyes and give it a sensation of strong identity , as if it were the member of a football team or a sports club with conspicuous striped shirts . |
| 20 | Personally , I would have preferred a more neurasthenic approach to the Berg — more febrile and phantasmagorical — and a slightly faster tempo for the first movement of the Stravinsky , as though it were the tightest clockwork mechanism . |
| 21 | Brutal it were the way he knocked the other feller about . ’ |
| 22 | It were the first time I ever heard him do it . |
| 23 | High up on it were the words : ‘ And now over to Scotland , where a very different general election campaign is being fought . ’ |
| 24 | Money and how to get hold of it were the perennial problems that refused to go away . |
| 25 | Shiva thought most of the folly of the world was brought about by fear and greed and to call this evil , as if it were the result of purposeful calculation and deliberate wrongdoing , was to show ignorance of human psychology . |
| 26 | ‘ Wyvis Hall , Nunes , Suffolk , and the twenty acres of land surrounding it were the property , through his marriage , of my uncle , Hilbert Verne-Smith . |
| 27 | When his unlucky opponent approached , the fighter would grab the scabbard with his right hand and raise it in the air as if it were the knife . |
| 28 | One sees the beginnings of a serious criticism of the very basis of The Lord of the Rings here : the author appears to have presented a set of rules and then observed them only partially , reserving as it were the right to exceptions and miracles . |
| 29 | Twenty five years later , Bevan expressed his hostility to the EEC in terms redolent with the memory of 1930 : ‘ Are we now expected to go back almost a century , reject socialism , and clasp free trade to our bosom as though it were the only solution of our social evils ? ’ |
| 30 | more than the mere fact of existence ; it is as it were the ego quality of this existence . |