Example sentences of "be not so [adv] a [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | This has been not so much a question of exegesis but of hermeneutics , searching for the underlying meaning and background to the understanding and belief in the demonic world ( see Carr 1981 ) . |
| 2 | ‘ Well , I 'm not so much a guitarist ; I 'm more of a listener — still . |
| 3 | In Britain the railways began in the 1800s , in Germany in the 1840s , but in invisible Poland the railways were not so much a network as the far flung provincial extensions of three distant empires . |
| 4 | The degree of risk created by the bad driving should be regarded as the crucial factor ; it is not so much a question of whether the sentence should be more severe when the risk eventuates , as whether the sentence should be more lenient when the risk does not materialize . |
| 5 | However , Ms Callil says that overall it is not so much a question of bigger profits , as ‘ less loss ’ . |
| 6 | It is not so much a question of what is promised as of the attitudes of those who will implement the decisions if the Tories are successful . |
| 7 | ‘ Prince ’ is not so much a person as a persona , a space , in which he can become anything he or we want him to be . |
| 8 | Raine Spencer is not so much a person but a phenomenon . |
| 9 | Hence the mink is not so much a threat to the muskrat population as a direct competitor with muskrat trappers . |
| 10 | That is not so much a sign that molecular biology is a young person 's game , but rather a proof of how great a magnet for young people 's enthusiasm the structure of DNA has proved to be . |
| 11 | In law , then , the essence of an act of God is not so much a phenomenon which is sometimes attributed to a positive intervention of the forces of nature , but a process of nature not due to the act of man and it is this negative side which deserves emphasis . |
| 12 | ‘ She is not so much a stargazer as someone who is interested in power — other people 's power , which is possibly the only reason she was attracted to David Mellor . |
| 13 | Indeed , it is not so much a case of them accompanying the AIB team members as of them being part of the team . |
| 14 | It is not so much a case of Captain Bob as of Major John and Petty Officer Newton . |
| 15 | However , jailing Shields for three months , Sheriff William Fulton told him : ‘ It is not so much a case of stealing from this house as plundering it , ransacking it and leaving it in an awful mess . |
| 16 | The italicised utterance is not so much a paraphrase as a summary . |
| 17 | The third ‘ qualification ’ to the simple arms-race is not so much a qualification as an interesting point in its own right . |
| 18 | John Clare testifies to the wholesale obliteration of landmarks , and the subsequent consciousness of alienation ; The Female Vagrant is not so much a poem by Wordsworth as a case-history . |
| 19 | The phrase ‘ innocent women and children ’ is not so much a slur on men as a way of infantilising women — classing them , with children , as helpless and passive victims incapable of political agency or moral judgement . |
| 20 | Although their sentiments sound very pious as they earnestly cry , ‘ Lord , send revival ’ , what they are in fact engaged in is not so much a prayer meeting as a spiritual buck-passing session . |
| 21 | It is not so much a problem of hardware development outpacing software , or vice versa . |
| 22 | In local government this is not so much a problem because of the wholesale reorganisation of local government in 1974 which followed a more or less universal pattern in terms of new structures and new functions . |
| 23 | This is not so much a criticism as a view shared by many , including MPs and key civil servants at the Welsh Office . |
| 24 | That word ‘ supposed ’ may anger Jewish readers , but Yad Vashem is not so much a memorial as a political statement . |
| 25 | Jaromil is not so much a character as a type , and is not unlike the Shelleyan poet in Shaw 's Candida , Eugene Marchbanks . |
| 26 | To claim money as a major human goal is not to make any specific claim about ‘ human nature ’ ( such as its mercenariness ) since it is not so much a goal in itself but the facilitator of almost all possible human goals — expressive , artistic , acquisitive or whatever . |
| 27 | Equally regrettably , they suggest that she who ( presumably ) approved them is not so much a Pharisee as a Philistine : one , moreover , who has been impressed by too many drives down The Bishop 's Avenue , where Hampstead 's temples to new money are built , en route to the Finchley constituency . |
| 28 | It is not so much a book for reading as a book to which reference can confidently be made both on general matters and on points of detail . |
| 29 | It is not so much a failure of one or other particular party , it is a failure of our culture to recognize the significance and importance of science and to elevate it within the nation more continuously and more substantially than governments of either party have chosen to do during the past 25 years . |
| 30 | What seems to be occurring is not so much a shift away from the conspiracy tradition , but a shift — for reasons of tactics and internal politics — in the way the conspiracy theory is to be presented . |