Example sentences of "could [verb] [be] [to-vb] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | The most useful contribution he could make was to turn up on the right day in the right uniform , cut ribbons , and make cosy speeches . |
| 2 | It was made the more difficult because the Iranians were at one remove from the hostage-takers ; even at best , all they could promise was to lean on Hizbollah and ask for a favour . |
| 3 | Yet , for all the massive support on either side of him , all the elder Falkenhayn could achieve was to push the line up on to the north crest of the Mort Homme . |
| 4 | The most that Aurangzeb could expect was to make the local rulers obedient to his authority , or else to replace them with deputies of his own who would be reasonably faithful vassals . |
| 5 | You know one of the things that we could do is to do another directory . |
| 6 | I 'm very glad to see that there 's quite a lot of nurses here , and I presume that quite a lot of those are women nurses , and I think that this is terribly important , and I think a useful thing with this new service could do is to go out and talk for instance to the meetings of women 's organisations , to old peoples ' clubs in the afternoon , and actually ask people what they would like , and get them talking in a nice informal way , rather than waiting for somebody to let them know what they think , because I do n't think they 're going to get it . |
| 7 | He said he 'd noticed that our Mini was getting a bit down at heel , and in the light of Ken 's injuries he thought the least he could do was to give me a better means of transport . |
| 8 | All she could do was to give Adam the completed programs , and then keep as far away as possible from Lynx and the man who ran it . |
| 9 | All I could do was to mumble that I regretted not taking my degree , and , though I could see it was irritating of me to whine , to feel stale and bored was not such a trivial thing ; that though we might have the vote now , meals still had to be prepared and children looked after and since this kind of drudgery was despised by society as not being ‘ real work ’ , we were in the hideous position of being both exhausted and imprisoned by it and also looked down on for doing it ; that I had honestly tried to be the sort of wife Richard wanted — and the sort of wife I felt I ought to be — but it was like being in a kind of airless cell and I could only see Richard as a jailer ; that I saw myself becoming progressively more and more incapable of doing anything , not just mentally , but from some kind of paralysis of will . |
| 10 | The last time it was asked about them by The Times , the best that it could do was to put up a research assistant to the hon. Member for Dunfermline , East ( Mr. Brown ) to answer . |
| 11 | For various reasons they were unable to attend this meeting , and so all the arresting officers could do was to take the names of those who were present . |
| 12 | The best he could do was to take up a central position in the ward , using a chair for a hassock , and to make a general supplication for all the patients collectively . |
| 13 | They only thing they could do was to go walk up to walk up a road to and contact the Evie bus but it did n't come down along for years and years . |
| 14 | The best he could do was to save a match point and take the third game . |
| 15 | The best we could do was to arrange for some of our experienced investigators to spend a few days explaining how we worked , and then to attach our visitors to a particular investigation that was current so that they could experience the practical application of our methods . |
| 16 | When Yvonne joined my classes she was suffering from tense shoulders and migraines which were very frequent and so intense that all she could do was to lie down while the attacks were present . |
| 17 | Without his aid , Edward was bound to negotiate for peace with Scotland ; but the best he could do was to conclude a thirteen-year truce in 1323 . |
| 18 | For the moment , all Harriet felt she could do was to sit back , wait and hope . |
| 19 | It did indeed prove a momentous day — and a momentous speech as well : but it lay in a future that none could foresee , and for the moment all that poor Hazel could do was to turn aside with the disappointed feeling that after all , his part in the crossing of the heather had not really been a very important one . |
| 20 | They came on him rapidly and powerfully and he decided that all he could do was to circle in a gentle way to indicate that he was not hostile , his heart filled with joy to see his own kind . |
| 21 | All they could do was to look at her but no one could read Rose 's face and they turned back to their books . |
| 22 | So the least I could do was to get out and around looking for the guy . |
| 23 | The last service Miller could do was to write the script of The Misfits for her . |
| 24 | 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 . |
| 25 | one is that i it may be that the old moral economy worked because the peasants recognized that , in a sense , that was the way they w well they , they could not stand up and criticize the landlord th the , the most they could do was to try and get the landlord to behave in a reasonable way , and that within that there would then be the sub-culture , the counter-culture of , of beginnings of mutual aid and what is happening in is in part that the communists are making them think the old moral economy work , but in part they are picking up on those sub- culture bits because the , the , the whole of mutual aid idea is , is coming from existing peasant cooperations . |
| 26 | The only thing the sailors could do was to cut a hole in the top of my box , and help me to climb out . |
| 27 | As the Labour dissidents in the Cabinet recognized , they did not have the power — they were a minority in the Cabinet as well as in the Commons — to avoid such a cut ; all that they could do was to ensure that it was not a Labour government which imposed it . |
| 28 | The floor was so thickly covered that there was no space for displays of skill ; the most that the most expert could do was to shuffle feebly back and forth . |
| 29 | The best the Company could do was to send a 25-year old clerk and a force of 560 men off to Arcot , the capital of the Carnatic . |
| 30 | Chief Executive says all they could do was to stand and watch the water getting higher . |