Example sentences of "[was/were] [verb] [pn reflx] [prep] the [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Thus , a number of professors of English and other influential educationalists were addressing themselves in the altered postwar environment to the issue of the disciplinary revisions required in order to produce " enlightened " bureaucrats , administrators , and teachers . |
| 2 | At the Taj , Indian families were grouping themselves for the professional photographers who swarmed over the central platform . |
| 3 | The hackers were surpassing themselves in the inventive ways they hit the ball badly , and often , and in the wrong direction . |
| 4 | At the start of the year , several firms were steeling themselves for the tough , face-losing decision to pull out of some markets — or out of the securities business altogether . |
| 5 | At the top of the stairs , somewhere beyond a short , misty journey , Jeopardy led Lucien into a room where a handful of musicians were preparing themselves for the coming performance . |
| 6 | Our terms of reference made it clear that we were to concern ourselves with the English curriculum for all pupils , whatever their mother tongue . |
| 7 | To cling to a Polish identity was to exclude oneself from the German monopoly on higher education and from all but menial employment in industry ; given the rapid depopulation of the countryside it was also to insist on the right to become and remain part of a backward , ignorant , illiterate , inward-looking agrarian people , stuck in a rural backwater with no access to the outside world , with scant interest from that world and little hope of progress . |
| 8 | ‘ Ca n't you leave us alone now ? ’ he pleaded and Wexford felt impotently that once again the man was enclosing himself within the unimpregnable defence of grief . |
| 9 | Eisenhower , who was in the midst of his re-election campaign and was presenting himself to the American electorate as ‘ a man of peace ’ , failed to make clear to his British and French colleagues in the Atlantic Alliance the depth of his reluctance to countenance the use of force over an issue that was only important and not vital to US interests . |
| 10 | However , to knock down old buildings was to put himself beyond the pale — not before time perhaps , but hardly for the right reason . |
| 11 | He was losing himself in the grey surf of her eyes , his heart threatening to smother him with its frenzied pounding . |
| 12 | This body was to turn itself into the Labour Party in 1906 . |
| 13 | In some haste he drafted a brief manifesto to show how the Conservative Party was adapting itself to the post-Reform Act political scene . |
| 14 | Hyacinth nervously straddled the pot again and , supported by her mother , was lowering herself over the steaming brew when the door crashed open . |
| 15 | He 'd put some more money in the meter and was warming himself by the newly-lit fire . |
| 16 | She looked round swiftly to check whether the others had seen him but Conrad was pouring wine and chattering , Philippa was settling herself into the crimson beanbag , Larry was moving around in the kitchen , John was sipping his drink and testing out her rocking-chair and the lad with the twisted arm was hovering , uncomfortably . |
| 17 | But the Dalek Killer was throwing himself at the golden cloud . |
| 18 | Samuel Pipkin was tensing himself for the coming life and death struggle this evening , when the vital decision would be made by the Prince of Wales , and Mr Thackeray would be avenged . |
| 19 | Her old father was extricating himself from the front seat slowly , painfully , gasping , as though he had to push open a heavy coffin lid in order to rise from the dead . |