Example sentences of "he [modal v] have been [art] [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Now , in retrospect , she could see that marriage to him would have been a ghastly mistake , and that her reaction to discovering that he had been seeing other women while he had been engaged to her had had far more to do with wounded pride than with a wounded heart . |
| 2 | Lyfing was later a pluralist with no good reputation , but it is worth noting the Chronicle D text 's description of him as " the eloquent bishop " : like Wulfstan , he may have been a notable preacher . |
| 3 | Nothing is known for certain about his parentage and birth , but David Fallows has suggested that he may have been the same man as John Boddenham , born in Oxford in 1422 , chorister and scholar of Winchester College and later scholar and fellow of New College , Oxford . |
| 4 | It was widely believed the committee wanted him , but insiders pointed out he may have been the wrong man for the job . |
| 5 | He may have been an outstanding goalkeeper but he was hardly a product of the Harvard Business School . |
| 6 | ‘ He should have been the best horse I ever had , if only he 'd had decent health ! ’ from owner David Broome , this was quite some testimonial to the abilities of the brilliant grey show-jumper , Phoenix Park . |
| 7 | He should have been the principal suspect . ’ |
| 8 | He should have been the last person to be killed . |
| 9 | He must have been a strong contender for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar but then again , the history of the academy awards is littered with the words ‘ if only … ’ |
| 10 | This tall and handsome man , not so many years older than himself — he must have been a mere boy when McAllister was conceived — could only be by his manner , and his resemblance to her , McAllister 's formidable father , so often referred to . |
| 11 | He must have been a good bit older than her . |
| 12 | He must have been a monied gentleman because it was a marvellous house . |
| 13 | And , indeed , he must have been a tough little lad to have survived it all , though it was to take its toll on him eventually ; by the time he died in far-away London at the age of 29 he had lived through some very harsh times indeed . |
| 14 | He must have been a remarkable man , because when his aircraft was shot down he lost his right hand but before many months had passed he was back on his squadron with a hook on his right arm , and although I am not one hundred percent sure of my facts here , I believe he went back on operations as a navigator or air gunner . |
| 15 | I think , when I think it since , I think he must have been a remarkable man to work and slave like that . |
| 16 | He must have been a natural for the job , being one of the very few Greeks with an appropriate qualification . |
| 17 | The way Pomiane chose to convey the necessary quantity to his listeners — he must have been a compelling radio talker — and later to his readers was in terms of " a bunch as large as a bunch of violets " . |
| 18 | She learned that Maxim had an elder sister — oddly , she 'd always assumed he must have been the first child — who had married a Quaker school-master and lived up North , had three children and did n't work , ‘ Except at disapproving of the Army , ’ Maxim added . |
| 19 | He must have been the first cousin of Man . |
| 20 | He must have been the best-known and most celebrated inhabitant of Baldersdale — excepting Hannah Hauxwell , of course — within living memory . |
| 21 | He must have been the last to drink it . |
| 22 | ‘ Oh , yes , please ! ’ returned Sally-Anne , and then caught her breath again , when he turned his head , presenting her with his beautiful , undamaged profile — he must have been an absolute stunner before he was disfigured . |
| 23 | He must have been an eligible enough bachelor : the son of a fairly prosperous artisan family , trained as a craftsman , and quite a handsome chap into the bargain . |
| 24 | He might have been a natural broadcaster but for the quality of his scripts . |
| 25 | He might have been a minor orator , not quite in the senate , nor yet on the stage , more likely at the Bar of some prosperous provincial town ; in fact he had made his early and relatively modest pile in some wholesale business . |
| 26 | I think he might have been the first black player in England but I know Celtic fielded jazz and rap pioneer Gil Scott Heron 's Dad in the 30s — a great success there apparently . |
| 27 | And Allied Signal Corp chairman Lawrence Bossidy has initiated the UK ‘ manufacturing versus services ’ debate in the US , suggesting that for those that believe that IBM Corp should be making more , cheaper rather than shuttering factories all over the place , he might have been the right man for the job : US industry ‘ can not slash its way to prosperity , ’ he told the new Design & Manufacturing Institute of the Stevens Institute of Technology — adding that while design innovation is a US strength , ‘ we need to extend US technological excellence from the design laboratory to the manufacturing floor — American business needs to find ways to improve the speed with which we convert innovative design into high-quality , marketable product ; many of our factory floors are populated by high-school graduates or dropouts , with a few engineers serving as supervisors safely ensconced behind glass walls , ’ Bossidy said , where Japanese shop floors are staffed much more by graduate engineers who work directly with well-trained workers , to solve problems and improve manufacturing efficiency . |
| 28 | There has been speculation that he might have been the ideal Tory candidate for the Hexham seat if he had not already given his allegiance to Langbaurgh . |
| 29 | He had to sing properly in Zarewitsch and one was reminded yet again that he could have been a great singer if only he had tried . |
| 30 | He could have been a handsome man . |