Example sentences of "[was/were] [adv] [prep] the first [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | He succeeded in doing so , but confided afterwards that no single examiner thought me worthy of a first , but when the marks were added up , mine were within a few marks of those who were obviously in the first class , and so my name was added to the list of three others . |
| 2 | The Navigation Acts were not in the first instance devised to make up for the fact that some English revenue was devoted to colonial defence , but defending the colonies came to be seen as an integral part of the Old Colonial System . |
| 3 | The weather was not too promising , but we made good time and were soon at the first terrace . |
| 4 | Printed materials published or distributed to accompany petitioning campaigns , in 1792 and 1823–4 for example , were clearly in the first instance intended to produce as many petition signatures as possible ; the mass of petitions was to be the weight behind the parliamentary initiatives of Wilberforce and Buxton . |
| 5 | Croatia , Czechoslovakia , Finland , Hungary , Poland and Slovenia were also among the first countries to recognize Bosnia-Hercegovina . |
| 6 | The German Social Democratic leaders , Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel , were also in the first instance critical , since the Polish argument seemed to imply that the territorial expansionism of imperialism in general , and Prussia in particular , did not matter any longer beside the development of supranational class unity . |
| 7 | They were midway through the first show and just about everyone was out on stage , giving ten minutes of comparative quiet before another storm of quick-changes and running repairs . |
| 8 | There was evidently no absolute labour shortage , if only because the reserve armies of the rural population ( at home and abroad ) were now for the first time advancing en masse upon the industrial labour markets . |
| 9 | The purist bookman wants his book complete with the half-titles , if they were there in the first place , and it is an appreciable demerit mark if the cataloguer has to confess ‘ lacking half-titles ’ or ‘ volume III without half-title ’ , even though they are present in the other two . |
| 10 | At first , the Assembly could not even decide upon its own agenda : it was only after the first session in 1949 that the Committee of Ministers agreed not to exercise its right to draw up the Assembly 's agenda . |
| 11 | The level of British farming declined sharply and it was only in the first decade of the twentieth century that it began to get on its feet again by shifting its emphasis to specialities like beef-fattening and vegetable-growing . |
| 12 | It was exactly like the first time . |
| 13 | Bryan Thomson 's match was already at the first tee when Patrick strolled up with the bag of clubs over his shoulder . |
| 14 | Shaun used to want to argue about essentially trivial things like whether we should appear on Top Of The Pops — and that was just after the first single . |
| 15 | Yes , well up here in Scotland er where I live erm the maincrop variety Golden Wonder tends to certainly need a par boiling and a par boiling only er when cooking so it needs about what five to six minutes or something like that but erm any more and the tatties go to mash and er that 's why I think a lot of the Golden Wonders er in Scotland are cooked in their skins but erm if I was to go for a variety that er I enjoy would be one called Pentland Ivory , it 's a , a nice flowery spud er and you get quite a plentiful supply of them too so it 's quite a good variety but you know the old Kerr 's Pink used to be called I think Henry 's Seedling , I remember rightly and then it changed its name to Kerr 's Pink because Kerr was a seedsman up in who really introduced it and er that was just after the first world war and that 's a good one , that 's a very good one and it 's got that waxy skin as well you see so it might be quite useful . |
| 16 | They were undoubtedly used by the employers , and the strike was seized as a chance to bring them in — but it should be firmly stated here , since it is usually glossed over , that the damage to the strikers " cause was not for the first time , the result of actions by other men . |
| 17 | As I lie here under the green , seaweedy tent I remember from some trite television interview , a remark made by Brigitte Bardot , loopy Parisienne , namely that in all her many love affairs she was off at the first sign of the waning of passion . |
| 18 | He was also for the first time vaguely troubled about the DIA 's priorities in the Middle East , particularly with respect to the Western hostages in Beirut . |
| 19 | That was midway through the first half and Town should have gone in two up . |
| 20 | I 've got an idea they 're a Cornish family and that 's why the old lady was here in the first place . ’ |
| 21 | Any organic material must inevitably reflect its origin , and can not contain what it was n't in the first place . |
| 22 | She was almost at the first port of call — one of Luke 's list . |
| 23 | Linford was there for the first time . |
| 24 | Jack seemed to realise she was there for the first time . |
| 25 | This year , FOX F M was there for the first time and Phil Angel managed to catch Dr John Howard to explain what it all meant . |
| 26 | But they used the Fleet Canteen which was there in the first war . |
| 27 | So , establishment for staphylococcusorius is often not an important feature because in the majority of infections we 're talking about an endogenous infection , the organism was there in the first place . |
| 28 | Why do you think the body was there in the first place ? |
| 29 | Erm you know , and these achievements , he 's not saying that you know re rev revolution 's the way forward , he 's actually saying look what 's happened before under the system that existed er previously , er well it actually existed , you know , at the time he was talking about , there does seem to be an effort by the peasants erm you know to , to improve their lot and therefore wha while he cites revolution in a way you , you can argue it is a bit strange because they seem to be , according to him , have improved their lot under the system that was there in the first place , erm |