Example sentences of "[was/were] [verb] [indef pn] [prep] the " in BNC.

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1 He pulled Carla into his arms and closed his eyes , feeling a vast , directionless violence , as if his task were to kill everyone in the world and the problem was how to start .
2 Subject presumes perceived er speaker as pr prestigious and authoritative and they perceived that there might be future interaction with him perceived his speech is more similar to their own than subjects who were told nothing about the speaker .
3 Complaints from the regional Propaganda Offices that neither press , nor radio , nor newsreels were reporting anything about the Führer any longer were to no avail .
4 ‘ They were doing everything by the book .
5 I think I think there was som some sent to Chester for example , I think they were doing something in the cathedral in Chester .
6 The effects of the war locally are explored , as families with differing allegiances were set one against the other .
7 Under the presiding genius of Roger , bishop of Salisbury , Henry 's most brilliant administrator — said to have been first chosen as chaplain by Henry ( whose tastes were different from the Confessor 's ) for the speed with which he could finish his mass — the English financial departments were achieving something of the efficiency and maturity of their Sicilian counterparts .
8 She opened her mouth to suggest that perhaps she could give him dinner at her hotel — and thereby eliminate any possibility of him putting his arm around her in his car — then found that she was suggesting nothing of the sort , but was asking , ‘ Did Mr Gajdusek ask you to invite me out ? ’ and was at once appalled that , Ven all too clearly not far away in her head , she had asked such a thing !
9 To flash a badge was to risk someone in the crowd remembering his face and in the future , on another job , he could fingered as the stoolie he truly was .
10 George Orwell was warning everyone of the plight of poverty-stricken masses , whose only salvation was socialism and not the sort recommended by vegetarian cranks in sandals .
11 One of his compulsive gambits was to challenge everyone at the first meeting .
12 One of the worst things that could happen to a pupil was to leave something in the dining room by mistake after dinner .
13 In fact … one of them was stuffing something through the wire and bars of his cage which they should n't be doing and he did n't much like it …
14 Felicity was wearing nothing but the great swirl of hair and the flower in it .
15 I walked in there and I can se he had a he had a er some copies and and er he was getting one in the bloody phone !
16 His first thought was to do something to the Volkswagen Passat .
17 Mrs Maugham would often abuse this garden and the widower 's laziness , with a self-righteous , alarming complacency , saying that it was a scandal and a disgrace , and that it ought not to be allowed : and when one day Clara , exasperated , as she sometimes rashly was , out of her usual silence , asked her what harm it was doing anybody , Mrs Maugham had snapped triumphantly that it was harming everybody in the street , because it helped the weeds to spread .
18 But someone was saying something at the same time as Lord Boddy , making him falter and finally stop in midstride .
19 He was saying something about the Hamilton house , a question .
20 Barbara Coleman was saying something about the former beauty of the garden and its decline , but wondering aloud whether it was fair to say decline because what was happening was that the garden was returning to nature , and further wondering whether it was really and truly nature because some of the plants were not native to the region and did not entirely belong there , and then wondering whether that was not a strange remark to come from one who had made Provence her home for so long that she felt quite a part of the landscape .
21 " Now , I was saying something about the fish-shop on Lyons Dock .
22 Cos somebody was saying something about the la the last time they got in , it all went
23 It was odd , but Greg noticed Bill Clough 's eyes following them sharply : he was saying nothing to the purpose so there was no reason why he should n't watch them , but Greg , following his lead , did wonder whether Hilary 's mutterings were not of a rather different kind from Desmond 's .
24 An editorial recently went so far as to say that more important than establishing a framework for research and development was doing something about the failure to disseminate and apply existing knowledge .
25 He did n't even look up , he was doing something with the cafetière .
26 ‘ Ma must have taken to cooking up bits of food in her bedroom , ’ Algy said when Lady Grubb was doing something to the plants and she and Guy were alone with father in his study .
27 However , one afternoon perhaps two weeks after our conversation in my pantry , I was doing something in the library when Miss Kenton came in and said :
28 ‘ I was doing nothing of the sort !
29 ‘ I was doing nothing of the kind , ’ she denied crossly , turning to face him .
30 Giles recalls one remark when Montini was criticizing the De Gasperi Christian Democratic government for inaction while denying that he was doing anything of the kind ( a typical Montini ploy ) : ‘ In political questions the Church has to be general , just as in religious matters she can not afford not to be particular ’ ( ibid. , p. 109 ) .
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