Example sentences of "go [prep] the motion " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | He belongs to a paper society which goes through the motions of life , in the air , notionally . |
| 2 | In the novel he stays polarized , but without bulk and in a tragic sense without force ; he goes through the motions ( ‘ the habits of a decent man ’ and so forth ) while his great-sinner infamies are unloaded upon a past which he can not even renounce . |
| 3 | The person who sits on the dais in Ottawa or Canberra and goes through the motions of opening a Parliament is not and can not be the same being at all as the person who does these things and has done them from time immemorial at Westminster . |
| 4 | To illustrate this point , Piaget uses the following examples : the creation or imagined characters to provide a sympathetic audience for a child 's actions or speech ; catharsis , as when a doll is allowed to ride a machine which a child fears ; and compensatory combinations , as when a child goes through the motions of pretend washing up when forbidden access to the real thing by its parent . |
| 5 | No drive , no ambition ; the team was just turning up to go through the motions ; and behind the scenes , lots of devious insider stuff . ’ |
| 6 | In the litter tray they do the same thing , but if it has been used several times without being properly cleaned out this becomes impossible and the cat will then prefer to defecate elsewhere , even if it has to go through the motions of covering its dung with imaginary earth after it has deposited it on a wooden floor or a carpet . |
| 7 | The choice that is left is to go through the motions either with counterfeit conviction , or with subversion and disdain . |
| 8 | All you need is a well-fed body to go through the motions of life . |
| 9 | As Pollitt notes ( 1986a , p. 165 ) ‘ a government can force its employees to go through the motions , but it can not mandate enthusiasm and commitment ’ . |
| 10 | His creator had fashioned him from clockwork and set him to go through the motions of living without giving him the actual breath of life . |
| 11 | So er we used to go through the motions and er after about er three weeks I think it was , no , yeah , two or three weeks anyway . |
| 12 | ‘ I am not going to spend big money bringing players over from Scotland simply for them to go through the motions . ’ |
| 13 | Lendl , still trying to push the disappointment of his United States Open defeat by Boris Becker to the back of his mind and impatient for another crack at the elusive Wimbledon title , appeared to be going through the motions during his round-robin match at the Stuttgart Classic . |
| 14 | I think they were just going through the motions of what had worked before . |
| 15 | They were going through the motions on television but their voices , face and body language were vividly clear — they knew they would lose and they were putting on a brave front . |
| 16 | But in this particular lesson the decision structure is something of a mirage , for as we have already pointed out at this stage the situation is not real enough for these children to be making anything but a superficial gesture — going through the motions of making a decision . |
| 17 | For the first time she was really listening , not going through the motions of an argument . |
| 18 | But the picking up strikes a chord and going through the motions always works . |
| 19 | ‘ To me , ’ Once More ‘ sounds like a rock band going through the motions . ’ |
| 20 | We go to work , eat , sleep , get married , have children , get divorced , always just going through the motions without being involved , without sparkle , without real enjoyment or genuine pain . |
| 21 | But even they seemed to be going through the motions , quite without conviction . |
| 22 | He went on going through the motions of being a poet until the very end , and inevitably , because he kept in practice , hit upon some successes — ‘ gleams like the flashing of a shield ’ occur in unexpected places . |
| 23 | ‘ But if I 'm not enjoying it I wo n't make the mistake of going through the motions like I did this year . ’ |
| 24 | I was in just such a trance , going through the motions of doing what I was told , but without being able to do so in reality . |
| 25 | ‘ But if I 'm not enjoying it then I wo n't make the mistake of going through the motions like I did this year . |
| 26 | It seems the Colchester team are in a phase of ‘ going through the motions ’ and are certainly guilty of an unacceptable number of turnovers and missed shots . |
| 27 | The only way he can recall what he does is by doing it , literally ‘ going through the motions ’ . |
| 28 | On this occasion congress exercised its constitutional right to declare war , but , in retrospect , this seems to have been no more than a case of going through the motions — the age of crisis was well underway and the constitutional balance of powers would never be the same again . |
| 29 | If we daydream while going through the motions of reading we can still recognise words , and perhaps even convince ourselves that we are reading . |
| 30 | Books such as those used for beginning readers are useful for demonstrating this effect , and if you have found yourself daydreaming or thinking about a conversation with a colleague while " going through the motions " of reading to a child , this does not mean that your reading was inadequate . |