Example sentences of "if not [art] [adj] [noun] " in BNC.

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1 Secondly , the impression created by some advertisers , invariably at one end of the quality table , of a clipped formal hedge covered in double blooms , is an improbable exaggeration , if not a downright falsehood .
2 He is coughing up because the Om budsman has found five separate cases of maladministration which , the minister admits , amount to a moral if not a legal responsibility .
3 His case was a strong one and when he was prosecuted for criminal libel in 1913 he won a moral , if not a legal victory , avoiding the expected prison sentence .
4 He desperately needed at least a neutral , if not a friendly neighbour to the north .
5 The fight to hold Londonderry began heroically when , in an episode still commemorated today , the ‘ apprentice boys ’ barred the gates but the governor , Robert Lundy , proved a broken reed , if not a covert traitor , recommending that the citizens surrender and actually sending away two regiments despatched to the town 's relief .
6 ‘ It means it now rests with the international side to put on the same , if not a better kind of performance as we put on against Norway last month .
7 ‘ It means it now rests with the international side to put on the same , if not a better kind of performance as we put on against Norway last month .
8 The ‘ man of the world ’ had become if not a rude caveman , then a sorry Rip Van Winkle figure .
9 After all that toil and trouble , the outcome was the same as it is more often than not in a constituency of the Republic — the same , that is to say , as if not a single vote had been transferred : the candidates elected were those who , on the showing of the very first count , had the greatest number of first-preference votes .
10 Since our beliefs strongly influence our actions , getting them right is socially very important , and therefore the freedom to question received wisdom , especially in fields that affect the behaviour of large numbers of people is , indeed , in the liberal view , a hugely important means , if not a vital precondition , of ensuring that ‘ the interests of weaker individuals and groups ’ are not harmed by ‘ the irresponsible attitudes and actions of the more powerful ’ .
11 If not a provisional card another way of permission to be seen properly at meaningful auditions .
12 It should be a cloudy night , or day , with at least the threat of rain , if not a light drizzle .
13 Nonetheless , to many Iranians the events proved the Shah was an American if not a British puppet .
14 ( And what is a Single Currency if not a permanent system of fixed exchange rates ? )
15 In practice , however , the dividing line has been somewhat blurred ; the owners of a smaller company often give personal guarantees to its bankers , and a parent company will give , if not a formal guarantee , then a ‘ comfort letter ’ relating to its subsidiary 's indebtedness to banks and others .
16 The second difference is that in the colleges advanced instruction is usually timetabled , if not a formal part of the course , whereas in universities and polytechnics it is generally neither of these .
17 The bourgeois was , if not a different species , then at least the member of a superior race , a higher stage in human evolution , distinct from the lower orders who remained in the historical or cultural equivalent of childhood or at most adolescence .
18 Primarily , between the marble staircases of the Grosvenor and Waterloo Rooms of this world , there was life — rich , content , brash , and above all , utterly and completely confident that tomorrow would hold the same as today , if not a few ounces , inches , or a pickle-jar more for all concerned .
19 obtain a corporate finance engagement letter ( or full form of engagement letter if not a corporate finance client ( see chapter 04 ) ) , if not already in place ; and
20 They proposed instead a new list of candidates which included themselves ‘ and certain other painters whom we knew to a greater or lesser extent … who seemed to us capable of representing if not a particular tendency at least a certain standard ’ .
21 What was Arnie if not a romantic investment ?
22 WHO suggests there should be , and , if not a common way of paying for it , at least an agreed means of approaching the difficulties involved .
23 First , it demonstrates that the majority of types of metaphor ( if not a statistical majority of metaphorical utterances ) do not operate on the basis of replacement , but contain both ‘ proper ’ and ‘ metaphoric ’ terms in praesentia ( 1958a:23–5 ) .
24 Unless these talks can be revived , and succeed , a series of bitter trade battles , if not an all-out trade war , is possible .
25 In his own interpretation , it is the advent of Christianity and its repudiation of the material that destroyed the harmony — at which point Hölderlin 's Christian allegiance engenders , in his greatest poetry , an antithesis , if not an actual conflict between his Greek ideal and the purely spiritual aspiration appropriate to his own Protestant background .
26 POWELL : That — that nursery of traitors and nest of vipers. ( clears throat ) A phrase which has become classic if not an actual thing .
27 What is an overseas player , if not an individual exile ?
28 As an old friend of John Wilkes [ q.v. ] he seems to have been , if not an active radical , at least a passive sympathizer and when in 1768 action was taken against young Methodists he comments ‘ The V.C.
29 Single girls of good family were not supposed to know of such things , but Sally-Anne , if not an active suffragette , knew about Miss Annie Besant , and those who said that women should not be tied to endless childbearing and that there were practical ways of avoiding it .
30 He was a contented , if not an ambitious man ; he took pride in his shop , which he looked upon as more of a gentlemen 's club .
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