Example sentences of "if [indef pn] could [vb infin] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | If everyone could look after their own , there would be far fewer people like social workers running around looking after other people 's own . |
| 2 | Cradled within his arms , Laura drifted into a deep sleep , but , even as she dreamed , their bodies seemed to stir against one another , as if they could n't help but touch and make love again ; as if nothing could satisfy the desire that each had awakened in the other 's flesh . |
| 3 | Now it looks as if nothing could stop West Germany taking the lead with her unbeatable combination of credentials : guilt , enthusiasm , material interest and money . |
| 4 | as if nothing could beat you once you 'd made up your mind . ’ |
| 5 | Smooth-haired , bright-eyed , immaculate , with the merest hint of a woody , masculine fragrance about him , he looked as if nothing could faze him . |
| 6 | Would you say that , perhaps it shows a flaw in the examination system if someone could do this ? |
| 7 | If someone could wave a magic wand , and I could change something , I think I 'd like to go down a couple of cup sizes . |
| 8 | Obviously , they deserved to be beaten out of sight , but since the weather had looked almost certain to save them if someone could have stayed there , the collapse became even more abject . |
| 9 | After a while , though , she pulled herself together and , leaving one copy on her desk , took the other down to the secretarial room and asked if someone could run her off two more copies , ideally before the board meeting . |
| 10 | No doubt it had a great deal of appeal because it suggested that , if someone could afford air travel , he must be a bit of a swinger and must be with it . |
| 11 | Propositions 53 — 71 are the application of this thought to expectation ( for example , 56 : ‘ If someone could see the expectation itself — he would have to see what is being expected ’ ; 60 : ‘ Reality is not a property still missing in what is expected and which accedes to it when one 's expectation comes about ’ ) ; 331–70 , to colours ( for example , 331 : ‘ One is tempted to justify rules of grammar by sentences like ‘ But there really are four primary colours . |
| 12 | There was a sense of immaturity in our society , an admiration of the crook , the kind of cock-eyed notion that if someone could get away with it he was a Robin Hood type who could somehow feather his own nest and at the same time feather theirs . |
| 13 | ‘ If someone could find a round the world trip lasting six months , I would happily go , ’ commented one accountant . |
| 14 | What if someone could undergo that absorption with a cool … dare I say it ? … scientific rationale . |
| 15 | If someone could crawl under the |
| 16 | It would be lovely he said if somebody could give him a ring . |
| 17 | Erm , if somebody could spend a little bit of time with Ilias because we 've got this language problem and I know that he 's found this a little bit difficult , I think he would appreciate it tonight , when you get together please . |
| 18 | And I 've been wondering if something could go wrong with the telephone system of Foulness . " |
| 19 | And reciprocally , if memory formation requires the synthesis of proteins for the construction of synapses , then if one could stop the proteins from being synthesized around the time of learning then the memory should not be formed ; an animal trained on a task and prevented from synthesizing proteins should behave as if it has no memory for the task — is amnesic — when it is subsequently asked to perform it . |
| 20 | One would feel happier about the anthropic principle , at least in its weak version , if one could show that quite a number of different initial configurations for the universe would have evolved to produce a universe like the one we observe . |
| 21 | This view of a quantum theory of gravity would be much more satisfactory , however , if one could show that , using the sum over histories , our universe is not just one of the possible histories but one of the most probable ones . |
| 22 | Despite this period there was always a mass of cloud and it was quite normal for us to go down to see if one could identify some feature . |
| 23 | When we look at Poe 's tales , the structure seems predictable , even formulaic : the dawning sense that all is not as it should be ; the attempts to explain away the moaning sounds that something inside him is nevertheless compelling him to hear ; the fight with fancy , as if one could will away one 's deepest fear ; and then the horrified recognition that what one was most afraid of is there , behind the antique panels , waiting to throw one to the floor . |
| 24 | On the other hand , if one could pass through a black hole , one might reemerge anywhere in the universe . |
| 25 | It was n't as if one could do anything to stop it . |
| 26 | But if one could aim films at a European market of 300 million people , that would be a very different story . |
| 27 | Although the miserable cold was likely to keep her awake all night — if one could sleep at all in the open air , with a raging storm about one and the fear all the time that someone might find one camped out like a vagrant ! |
| 28 | Take us and Europe now , is n't it odd that , after two world wars , in which our men who died , our nations sacrificed themselves in fighting what was thought to be the great German danger , we now find ourselves at least as much hostile to our allies in both of those wars — the French — as we do to the Germans , and if one could measure this sort of thing it might well be that in the British public at large you would find more sympathy towards the Germans than the French . |
| 29 | If one could select those areas where there appears to be the largest proportion of sites which seem to have been affected , they are in Hampshire , Hertfordshire and north Kent , possibly indicating that they suffered the greatest disturbance . |
| 30 | I was terrified when Herman , like someone in her books , turned to me and said : ‘ How delightful it would be if one could hear what she 's saying when she does this . |