Example sentences of "there [was/were] [pron] [prep] a " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | Sir John had identified a great number of passages which he regarded as objectionable from the government viewpoint , but I suspect he recognised early on that there was nothing of a very secret nature to conceal and what the government sought to suppress were the comments made by Crossman and others about senior civil servants . |
| 2 | There was nothing except a handful of dried leaves and mildewed wood . |
| 3 | Ranulf came up and expertly went through their wallets and pockets but there was nothing except a few coins . |
| 4 | There was nothing about a delivery in his early morning instructions . |
| 5 | I mean there was nothing on a , on a formal level or anything |
| 6 | And once they climbed so high they entered the clouds and there was nothing but a great whiteness around them as if the world had been erased by a giant rubber . |
| 7 | As I came over the brow , there was nothing but a windswept plateau . |
| 8 | In his white face , there was nothing but a stillness deeper than the farthest depths of the sea — a quietness that made Ruth think of a drowned body drifting on its slow journey down to the sea bed . |
| 9 | A few years ago , there was nothing but a brief ‘ coming next ’ . |
| 10 | Instead there was nothing but a pale mist-shadow pearling between the surfaces of reality . |
| 11 | Seaward there was nothing but a pearly opalescence which , though it seemed likely to vanish at any moment , effectively blocked out sea and sky . |
| 12 | Simultaneously the window slammed shut and there was nothing but a quivering of curtains where Mrs Rogers ' face had been . |
| 13 | Getting down to the bare bones : There was nothing but a skeleton staff to assist him when Brian Chappill , marketing manager , Midlands West & Wales , handed over a Wimpey Construction UK cheque for £l , 000 to Linda Edwards of Bath-based charity the National Osteoporosis Society . |
| 14 | The effectiveness of metaphors of the type in which inanimates are treated as animate is shown in passages of narratorial description where they are deployed in a fully developed form , for example in a lengthy passage where the pre-Copernican view of the universe ( which still pervades the English language ) is exploited and combined with the peoples ' perception of animacy in all things : " The moon rose slowly and almost vertically into a sky where there was nothing but a few spilled traces of cloud . |
| 15 | There was nothing but an old , rickety fence between the playground and the water . |
| 16 | There was nothing like a chocolate gateau with cream ; Elysium was to be found in a glutinous , fat dumpling ; and a good pastry was a walk in Arcadia . |
| 17 | There was nothing like a flower to cheer you up on a dark day . |
| 18 | There was nothing like a big coon or a dose of clap to get rid of a punter . |
| 19 | It has also become evident from recent literature that there was nothing like a " simultaneous " extinction of many different groups , either within the brachiopods alone or within the organic world in general , at the end of the Permian ; I am told that plant spores , at least , still show an uncannily rapid change at this level all round the world , though the big change in plant macrofossils seems to have come much later . |
| 20 | AN INJURED man had repeatedly told police that there was no-one in a derelict boarding house which had been destroyed in an explosion , a jury heard yesterday . |
| 21 | And there was something about a large tortoise stove , freshly done with first-class blacklead and plenty of elbow-grease , that gladdened your eyes . |
| 22 | There was something about a girl he wanted to bring and there was something to do with stones . |
| 23 | ‘ There was something about a Bronze Age , I believe . |
| 24 | But er there was something about a servant lass that got pregnant . |
| 25 | There was something about a chair . |
| 26 | He was a good footballer and he always looked a bit weird with his striking blond hair However , there was something of a monkey-like mischievousness about him . |
| 27 | There was something of a contrast at the Oval . |
| 28 | There was something of a roll , a lounge in his gait , not unlike his own ‘ Peter Bell ’ . |
| 29 | There was something of a problem as to whom to appoint in command of the army whilst the Regent was absent . |
| 30 | In 1984 for example , Stehr and Meja suggested that there was something of a renaissance of the sociology of knowledge ( Stehr and Meja 1984 : 4 ) . |