Example sentences of "not so [adv] a [noun sg] [subord] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | The italicised utterance is not so much a paraphrase as a summary . |
| 2 | They went up another narrow passageway , not so much a passage as a mere slit between houses , and came out suddenly into open space . |
| 3 | 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 . |
| 4 | Sir : You refer to the Prime Minister ( 4 October ) as ‘ not so much a Pharisee as a Philistine ’ , owing presumably to her supposedly vulgar tastes . |
| 5 | That word ‘ supposed ’ may anger Jewish readers , but Yad Vashem is not so much a memorial as a political statement . |
| 6 | 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 . |
| 7 | ‘ 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 . |
| 8 | This is not so much a criticism as a view shared by many , including MPs and key civil servants at the Welsh Office . |
| 9 | ‘ 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 . |
| 10 | He had not worked out tactics to deal with what was not so much a surrender as a bid to form an immediate alliance . |
| 11 | Jaromil is not so much a character as a type , and is not unlike the Shelleyan poet in Shaw 's Candida , Eugene Marchbanks . |
| 12 | Catherine , Mary noted , was especially quick to challenge George 's generalisations by reference to a local situation : Mary herself kept not so much a watch as a guard over Hope 's words . |
| 13 | The third ‘ qualification ’ to the simple arms-race is not so much a qualification as an interesting point in its own right . |
| 14 | This was not so much a service as a lot of clowning about to biblical themes . |
| 15 | The Greek purchased a bag of sweets , well , not so much a bag as a twist of newspaper , distributed some of the sweets among his retinue of small boys and gave the rest to his guide . |
| 16 | Doubtless that is not so much a reality as an ideal — and one for which due respect is conspicuously lacking in the ethos of the STV . |
| 17 | ‘ Scotland in Europe ’ is not so much a project as an accomplished fact . |
| 18 | Within his own country , he is not so much a Leviathan as a Gulliver figure hemmed in and tied down by a complex network of restraints that must be thrown off if he is to be more than a helpless giant in the White House . |
| 19 | Not so much a sound as a sensation that a whole spectrum of sound was missing . |
| 20 | Bowe poses not so much a riddle as two straightforward questions : Does he have the heart , stamina and experience to match Holyfield 's over 12 rounds ? |
| 21 | The fourth is not so much a method as a means of disguising the reality of the other three from the public . |
| 22 | To many Churchill was not so much a buccaneer as a straightforward pirate , a political outcast who skated on thin ice deliberately to keep himself in the public eye , a man who polished brilliant and wounding phrases that tacitly suggested himself as the alternative should his jeremiads turn out true . |
| 23 | Yet that something not so much a thing as an eye . |
| 24 | He became not so much a propagandist as a radio ‘ character ’ who had been created by a darker comedy than Tommy Handley 's ITMA . |
| 25 | Not so much a joke as a rebuke , perhaps . |
| 26 | ‘ Not so much a book as a scream ’ , commented a reviewer in The Spectator , fairly . |
| 27 | Not so much a mother as a series of snapshots from an old family album . |
| 28 | Like John after him , he was not so much a tinker as a brazier , a mender and purveyor of household utensils , with a forge beside his cottage . |
| 29 | The return of rock means not so much a crashdown as a return towards rock , a departure from planet pop to a self-sufficiency that matches pop . |
| 30 | Scholars of Confucianism are agreed that it is not so much a religion as a guide to a system of political organisation , and as time went on , it too fell victim to divisions and disputes . |