Example sentences of "do [was/were] [to-vb] a [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | All he thought he had done was to assemble a collection of his favourite songs . |
| 2 | The best that could be done was to find a formula which , compatibly with this , gave something to the minority . |
| 3 | All she 'd done was to make a bit of polite conversation ! |
| 4 | All he 'd done was to make a picture of someone in his head and worm his way inside it . |
| 5 | The best he could do was to save a match point and take the third game . |
| 6 | The only thing the sailors could do was to cut a hole in the top of my box , and help me to climb out . |
| 7 | She decided that the link with Bert was unlikely to hold Jasper back from one of his binges ; that she would have to sit it out ; that Bert was almost certainly going after Pat ; that the best thing she could do was to organise a Congress of the C.C.U. for as soon as possible . |
| 8 | Eventually , however , they concluded that the best the Ministry could do was to prohibit a reduction of charges , though this limited only the most flagrant abuses . |
| 9 | And erm one of the things we agreed to do was to compile a list . |
| 10 | In James Watson 's account ( 1970 ) of the discovery of the structure of DNA — where the non-scientist expects to find strictly-controlled and logically-sequenced reasoning — there is an element of play : ‘ All we had to do was to construct a set of molecular models and begin to play ’ ( ibid . |
| 11 | The last thing that Mrs Keppel would have been encouraged to do was to get a divorce . |
| 12 | What Peg did was to take a bed-sheet from home and sneak off with it . |
| 13 | ‘ So what we did was to take a couple of months for everybody in the band to write songs , and to rehearse everything . |
| 14 | All Eddie did was to wait a bit and then lean over without a sound and lay the gun barrel across her back cheeks . |
| 15 | All I did was to use a term to convey a meaning . |
| 16 | What I did was to make a virtue of my misery . |
| 17 | The first major thing I did was to have a road laid from the top , rather a long way . |
| 18 | But all Goddard did was to tell a succession of risqué and not at all funny stories more suited to the smoking-room than to a dinner in mixed company . |
| 19 | All Connor did was to add a preservative to this enzyme that gave it a few months ' shelf life . |
| 20 | They were absolutely horrid and if I went on the beach , the first thing I did was to dig a hole in the sand to put the feet in and then just stay there all day … . |