Example sentences of "[was/were] [verb] [pn reflx] [prep] a [noun] " in BNC.
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| 1 | Many of the instrumental numbers were so relaxed , they looked like they were amusing themselves at a family party and when Harry told everyone to stand up as he bopped around the stage in his black silk suit , everyone did as they were told . |
| 2 | what instructions had been given to the architects as to the ground they were to cover ; how far Parliament would be bound by the decision of the Commission [ of Judges ] ; and how we were to guard ourselves against an expenditure which we had been told by high authority would amount to not much less than £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 … |
| 3 | A more serious problem was what to do with the soldiers who , now accustomed to fighting and to war 's many attractions , were finding themselves without an occupation . |
| 4 | The Smiths were priming themselves for a spell in the top five . |
| 5 | The city was bracing itself for a party to beat them all , but the Spaniards decided to re-write the script . |
| 6 | If so , it would be wrong that the council , because it has performed its statutory duty under the national law to enforce section 47 , was to find itself under a liability in damages as a result of performing that duty . |
| 7 | One client referred for counselling eventually admitted that she was starving herself as a way of preventing conception ; she did not want another child , but her husband had pressurised her to become pregnant . |
| 8 | Surely he must have realised that he was pitting himself against a concern of considerable strength . |
| 9 | A sob , swiftly repressed , rose in her throat ; she was condemning herself to a life as lonely as the seagull 's looked , but it , at least , could find a mate — she would never be able to do that . |
| 10 | The lecherous Cohn once used his intercom to address an embarrassed starlet when he asked her if she was keeping herself in a state of sexual readiness for him . |
| 11 | He decided that the only way to avoid spending the rest of his life in the workhouse was to exhibit himself as a freak , and so he offered himself to Sam Torr , who ran a music-hall , the Gaiety Palace of Varieties . |
| 12 | He raised his wings and pulled them back a little , bent his head forward , slightly opened his beak , and lunged forward and down at the white flesh of the hand that was pushing itself with a piece of sandwich through the front bars of his cage . |
| 13 | Essentially he was establishing himself as a figure of imperial stature , as his gold coinage reveals . |
| 14 | He needed , essentially , to become a Freeman of the City of London — and the most direct route for him , considering he had served no appropriate apprenticeship , was to buy himself into a livery company first . |
| 15 | ‘ The first time I met Samantha , ’ Bob says , ‘ I 'll never forget this , she was surrounded by these six guys and she was funking herself with a vibrator . |
| 16 | While householders fumed in queues to find out how they should pay , he was sunning himself on an Indian Ocean holiday . |
| 17 | The first creature we had seen , a small turtle , was sunning itself on a rock as we climbed into a canoe and paddled and drifted round the green-speared edge of the lake . |
| 18 | I was committing myself to a policy . ’ |
| 19 | Without a word , the nun ushered them through the broad , thick oak door and into a tiled hall , there to be confronted by a statue of the Virgin Mary with the Child in her arms , and above her , on the wall , a large crucifix hanging at such an angle it appeared that Christ 's bent head was viewing Himself as a child in His mother 's arms . |
| 20 | In 1964 Mr Wilson presented himself as a radical figure , but by 1974 he was comparing himself to a family doctor , and hoped , in his own words , ‘ to achieve … peace and quiet for the country ’ . |
| 21 | The last thing he wanted was to turn himself into a do-gooder , but he realized very quickly that most of the volunteers were genuinely and sincerely opening their hearts and homes . |
| 22 | She had stayed there , always conscious that she was preparing herself for an existence of unutterable boredom , and was one of an enormous number of women who were training themselves for an ‘ if I do n't marry ’ life . |
| 23 | Now , in accepting Tully 's offer , the defendant was not protecting his master 's interests … [ he ] was placing himself in a position in which there was a conflict of interests between him and his principal and he was looking after his own interests to the detriment of his master 's interests . |
| 24 | The situation arising from this all-too-common attitude was as follows : in the evening she was placing herself in a situation of maximum temptation as far as diet-breaking was concerned with time on her hands and food and drink all too readily available . |
| 25 | David was warming himself by a fire in the centre of the hut ; he was almost nude and had never worn anything other than a coarse blanket which was slightly tied round him to cover his back . |
| 26 | Sir Charles Webb-Bowen was delivering himself of a homily . |
| 27 | I could see at once he was working himself into a panic about it all . |