Example sentences of "so [adj] [verb] as " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | Peter hesitated in the hall , not so much to eavesdrop as to prepare himself for a noiseless ascent of the stairs . |
| 2 | Meanwhile Jackson himself , a gangly six foot four , with a hairline not so much receding as speeding flat out towards his neck , was easily slotted in with the other unlikely pop stars , taking their surly revenge on the conventional way of doing things . |
| 3 | To them , the danger is not so much receding as increasing : but that is because their definition of what constitutes danger is very different from ours . |
| 4 | Advocates of each conception of contracts have failed to recognize that they may not be so much disagreeing as attempting to answer different questions . |
| 5 | If the weather was fine Maud liked to walk in Hyde Park , not so much to see as to be seen , her small hand slotted lightly into he bend of his arm . |
| 6 | It has been stressed that there are strong forces in favour of the maintenance of existing policy , and that many new initiatives are in fact derived from concerns not so much to innovate as to correct the imperfections of existing policies . |
| 7 | This particular passage ends with the sentence : ‘ the purpose of the underground press is ‘ not so much to dissent as to disrupt ’ , and its editorial policies explicitly and implicitly seek to overthrow society as we know it , and of this it makes no secret ’ . |
| 8 | In the passage quoted from Whatever Happened to Sex ? when Richard Neville was discussed above , Mrs Whitehouse described his book Playpower as ‘ the handbook of the international drop-outs ’ , the purpose of the underground as ‘ not so much to dissent as to disrupt ’ and the implicit and explicit goal contained in OZ editorial policies as the overthrow of society . |
| 9 | Presumably he had in mind — nothing else would have been reconcilable with his profession of non-violence — not so much killing as bravely standing up to be killed , but the position was one he felt constrained to apologize for later . |
| 10 | He was using the treaty not so much to conquer as to acquire legitimately what he regarded as his own by right . |
| 11 | Some comments could be dealt with readily by changes to the draft statutory instruments but others were not so easy to resolve as they raise more fundamental questions and in these cases my officials were able to explore with the auditing practices board , whether issues could be more easily addressed in the statement of auditing standards which is being developed to accompany the legislation than in the statutory instruments themselves . |
| 12 | Your wedding photographs will keep the memories of the big da alive for you and your future family for many years to come , providing a permanent record of all those small details so carefully planned yet so easy to forget as the years roll by . |
| 13 | Unfortunately the resulting diagram is not so easy to interpret as are some of the other forms of chart . |
| 14 | Nowhere is the balance between the natural and the contrived so hard to attain as in the making of a ‘ domesticated ’ meadow . |
| 15 | No wonder so many bore as they inform . |
| 16 | That impatient man did not have so long to wait as he had feared , for the very next evening a young townsman arrived at Hoddom from Annan , ten miles distant , with the news that Edward Balliol had indeed returned to his army . |
| 17 | If the behaviour patterns of the good citizen as delineated by Home Office ministers were both so lacking and so necessary to cultivate as they suggested , the schools ' function in laying the essential foundations was transparently obvious . |