Example sentences of "[adv] have be a [adj] " in BNC.

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1 There is also a small late building on a totally different alignment ( almost east-west ) which could perhaps have been a small Christian shrine , erected to counteract pagan influence .
2 As this met the requirements of the hotel , serving customers would merely have been a needless waste of effort and resources which could be profitably siphoned off elsewhere .
3 Maybe I was worried that someone else would read my diary , but if so this worry could only have been a slight one : I was much too careful to afford anyone the opportunity to snoop .
4 Such an equilibrium could only have been a temporary one , being based upon the fear of a common enemy , rather than on a positive material joint interest .
5 Zen 's barking background could only have been a big plus the day he found a newborn baby whose entire experience of life was going to be lying abandoned for a few hours by a creek near Plymouth .
6 But even at this date the alteration in emphasis can only have been a conscious attempt to attune to the wider audience , if still at that time mainly within Bavaria , which was beginning to show interest in Hitler in 1923 , and an awareness that anti-Marxism had a wider potential appeal than the mere repetition of anti-Jewish paroxysms of hate .
7 The public bar was a large L shaped room , one half of the L obviously having been a separate snug before the modernisation .
8 But if it did , it was apparently to have been a big affair — no mere helicopter-borne ‘ surgical strike ’ — in which sheer weight of numbers and firepower could have been expected to guarantee ultimate success .
9 She was shivering , but it was not with the cold , nor even reaction to what apparently had been a near escape .
10 At this point Joan got a surprise visitor ; Vera Long had been a technical instructor in Occupational Therapy in York area hospitals , and enthused about Joan 's marvellous dogs .
11 And the Cid assembled his chief captains and knights and people , and said unto them , Kinsmen and friends and vassals , hear me : to-day has been a good day , and to-morrow shall be a better day .
12 Driving through London in a strange car , even on a Sunday evening , would normally have been a terrifying prospect .
13 Their progress was hampered by the vast crowds and the cars that thronged what would normally have been a clear area but people soon scattered from their path as with lights flashing and sirens wailing they forged ahead .
14 Since a great proportion of them were engaged in growing corn and other basic needs of life , there must already have been a considerable proportion of the European population who needed to be fed by the labour of others .
15 A dumb Brummie , a tough-nut Geordie , a light-fingered Scouser , a cheeky Cockernee — it could so easily have been a clichéd mess .
16 These young people were not only happy they were roaring drunk and there could easily have been a double inquest with that other young man .
17 It could just as easily have been a refused request to come home late or stay the night at a friend 's house .
18 And it could so easily have been a suicidal career move .
19 This could so easily have been a recommendable mid-price set of Mozart 's mature Piano and Violin Sonatas , but it is arguably put out of court by the early digital recording ( made between 1975 and 1978 ) which gives the violin an unpleasant rough edgy tone .
20 This was an unreasonable wish since it was not clear that such a leader would be available and the effect of defeat might as easily have been an undesirable fudging of economic issues and a gerrymandering of constitutional issues .
21 Thin , slope-shouldered , raincoated and thoroughly inconspicuous , he could easily have been an innocent Sunday evening wayfarer , but for the fact that Harry was now convinced he was not .
22 A decade ago there would scarcely have been a single one .
23 There is and always has been a yawning gap at the budget end of the amplifier market .
24 Luke 's an influential and powerful man — the film industry always has been a glamorous lure for young , hopeful girls — and he 's wealthy too .
25 If the wage rate had fallen , say , by 10% and the total employment had increased , as a result , by 5% , there would still have been a net 5% loss in total labor income .
26 According to the singularity theorems of classical general relativity , there would still have been a big bang singularity .
27 Even if Piłsudski had been a socialist , he would still have been an independent Polish socialist in Moscow 's eyes .
28 She recovered — though the royal nursery in Linlithgow can hardly have been a peaceful place , with its occupant combining convalescence with the more normal infant problem of teething ; but she was entirely well by the time Sadler saw her again , in early August .
29 He would hardly have been a natural companion for the Prime Minister , Mrs Baldwin and Tom Jones during a quiet evening of patience in the Long Gallery at Chequers .
30 When there were contractors to be handed out directors may have tried to help one another , but that can hardly have been a sufficient reason for buying up large blocks of shares .
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