Example sentences of "could [verb] [be] [verb] [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | well it she could 've been done last year but we 've not done this year , be gone . |
| 2 | It 's not very nice when you 're driving the vehicle and er I know you 're all experienced drivers and then you get somebody sitting there alongside you starting to look at you do , and I I you could 've been driving all your life but you still feel a bit edgy and a bit tense . |
| 3 | You know one of the things that we could do is to do another directory . |
| 4 | If I was to spend race day reporting as a spectator , then the least I could do was arrive early and attempt the course myself . |
| 5 | Nicholas believed that the best thing non-Russians could do was become Russian . |
| 6 | All that the King could do was to provide some sort of legal foundation of government for Englishmen going to unsettled and thinly populated areas , which he did by linking the legitimacy of their governments to the legitimacy of his government . |
| 7 | All she could do was to keep vigilant , and to hope against hope that Matthew would soon tire of the old man , or that the old man would soon tire of deliberately using the boy in order to antagonise her . |
| 8 | The worst she could do was to bring that Tuscan adventurer into the family , since when none of us has had a moment 's peace . |
| 9 | It is difficult to appreciate it now in the liberated 80's , but at the time the worst thing an unmarried girl could do was get pregnant , and the worst news a mother could hear from her daughter was , ‘ I 'm going to have a baby ! ’ |
| 10 | I was isn a relationship which I could feel was going wrong — in the same way that all my previous relationships had gone wrong . |
| 11 | Then it abruptly disappeared , and all he could see were entrancing coloured patterns chasing each other about the glowing darkness like tropical fish . |
| 12 | Andrew Warren , the director of the Association for Energy Conservation , commented that the document contained no new ideas and " could have been written several years ago " . |
| 13 | He teaches you how to write wonderful , metaphysical narratives , but they could have been written any time this century . |
| 14 | Spent ten years writing L'Idiot de la famille when he could have been writing Maoist tracts . |
| 15 | This categorisation could have been carried out in other ways , and other purposes seen here as secondary could have been given greater prominence . |
| 16 | ‘ Nevertheless , it is strange that he should keep such a sum on current account , when he could have been earning two per cent interest . ’ |
| 17 | Almost all the work was done by manual labour alone and the order which Wade sent to Edinburgh Castle in 1726 for ‘ 94 shovells , 82 pickaxes , 42 spades , 3 iron crows ’ is typical and could have been repeated many times over . |
| 18 | Could have been done this morning . |
| 19 | " It 'll be good for a giggle , as Charlie says , " she concluded , with a look which on a lesser woman could have been called coy . |
| 20 | Indeed , had Sheffield referee John Key not been so lenient , Wright could have been dismissed two or three times over . |
| 21 | Thus what looks like a perfect example of a ‘ horns of a dilemma ’ structure , turns out not to be so — it was a game that could have been played two or three lessons or ten lessons later . |
| 22 | The only criticism is that it could have been made available earlier to complement the often impractical tomes which emerged from other quarters . |
| 23 | The implicit monarchical themes may also have their own republican counterparts , which could have been made explicit in further contexts . |
| 24 | The seller was liable even though by a simple process of warming , the bulk could have been made soft . |
| 25 | In retrospect , however , it is difficult to see how , unless the King had shown most remarkable misjudgment , it could have been decided other than it was . |
| 26 | Bristol Crown Court heard expert evidence that the double spinal fracture which left baby Danielle in terrible pain could have been inflicted 24 hours before she died . |
| 27 | While his arguments about capital punishment are still of great relevance , it now seems rather odd that it could have been thought necessary to have to argue against the use of torture for extracting confessions . |
| 28 | Horne could have been murdered any time between dusk and dawn . |
| 29 | Johnson wrote , ‘ We were treated with very liberal hospitality , among a more numerous and elegant company than it could have been supposed easy to collect . ’ |
| 30 | The CPSU could have been considered analogous to a liberal democratic party in some limited respects . |