Example sentences of "[adj] [noun pl] [was/were] a [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | The fusion of the Asian and European conflicts was a gamble which could only come off if a successful blitzkrieg were to lead to negotiation . |
| 2 | He concludes that ‘ it is not too strong to say that the marriage law as it operated in practice in England from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries was a mess ’ ( p. 135 ) . |
| 3 | The four-man winners were a team led by the former British champion Tom De La Hunty |
| 4 | The only mention of surrendered personnel was a sentence stating " In the north of Carinthia there is a pocket of some 30,000 Cossacks , including women and children " . |
| 5 | High notes were a bit of a nightmare too . |
| 6 | Neatly screened by another low wall of lattice-work bricks were a compost heap , bound in by wooden slats , and an empty metal incinerator . |
| 7 | But I soon discovered that in Wengen a casual welcome and a cuppa with the local English clergy was a taste of how the Brits have made a mark on this German-speaking village . |
| 8 | It was a large basement , with no street-level exposure , and although sales for the first two days were excitingly high , the next few months were a disaster . |
| 9 | Clear words were a matter of practical rather than juridical significance ; they were not the essential constitutive element in trusts but invaluable evidence as to the intentions at law of the settlor . |
| 10 | It is conceivable that the forceful suppression of women 's inordinate sexual demands was a pre-requisite to the dawn of every modern civilization , and almost every human culture . |
| 11 | The report that the office of Major Vasily Kypov , Commandant of ZhKh 385/3/I in the Mordovian ASSR , had been burned to destruction in as yet unexplained circumstances was a matter of sufficient significance to be seen by a senior official at the Ministry of the Interior . |
| 12 | If daily life was difficult , public duties were a nightmare . |
| 13 | The next four and a half years were a waking nightmare for the Keenans , especially for Brian 's sisters Brenda Gillham and Elaine Spence . |
| 14 | The realization that I had an incurable disease that was likely to kill me in a few years was a bit of a shock . |
| 15 | The following few days were a nightmare . |
| 16 | His fried eggs were a bit scrappy : they needed a woman 's touch . |
| 17 | Foreign affairs were a cause of much criticism for Gladstone and the Liberals particularly over the Sudan . |
| 18 | Alcoholic beverages were a fact of life when most drinking-water was a health hazard , so Dorchester 's Puritans killed several birds with one stone by taking over the demon drink themselves , to administer it with moderation and make a healthy profit to be dispensed to the needy . |
| 19 | Indeed , during almost a thousand years the only important legislation concerning English highways was a statute dating from the reign of Edward I. It required lords of manors to supervise the felling of trees and undergrowth up to 200ft on both sides of any ‘ highway ’ that led from one market town to another . |
| 20 | Thus the move into academia and the world of the social sciences was a move across a further conceptual boundary , another movement across time and space , encompassing another rite de passage . |
| 21 | And many of us still remember that among the food shortages of the war years and after , the scarcity of fresh tomatoes was a privation on the same level as the lack of lemons , onions and butter . |
| 22 | In Spencer 's formulation , sexual divisions were a hallmark of social progress and a reflection of organic law . |
| 23 | The very large costs of keeping their own staffers in foreign capitals were no longer justifiable , when British interests were a relic of their former importance . |
| 24 | Darwin realized that many secondary sexual differences were a consequence of the greater intensity of competition between males for access to mates and that many traits were more highly developed in males either because they conferred an advantage in fights or because they rendered their possessor more attractive to females . |
| 25 | One of Thrush Green 's favourite confections was a dish of Jenny 's hot cheese scones , and here is her recipe . |
| 26 | Hyperbolic perhaps , but Dr Dickson 's analysis of the structure of debt holding confirms that some degree of transfer from taxpaying land-holders to a class of debt-holding financiers was a characteristic of the public finance system . |
| 27 | John described it to many interviewers as if the free lessons were a concession in return for taking part in performances , but it would be more realistic to regard the performances by the University of Cape Town Ballet as a valuable part of his ballet education . |
| 28 | The Serbian Volunteers were a force recruited under the puppet government of Gen Nedic to serve Serbian interests , although this meant that they frequently had to act in concert with the Germans . |
| 29 | The huddle of noisy stalls in the back streets were a clamour of life and colour , selling diamanté , silk ribbons , radios , clothes , dead fish sliced up on cold slabs , snakes split down the middle , innards steaming on the bloodied stone floors , live birds in cages , killed with a hammer then plucked and sold , and thousand-year-old eggs streaked black and white with gaudy orange centres . |
| 30 | Nevertheless critics of liberal legislation that ‘ destroyed ’ the common lands failed to remember that , although the commons may have contributed to ‘ the independence and dignity so striking in the demeanour of the Spanish peasant ’ , the price of these social benefits was a level of agricultural production that precluded progress . |