Example sentences of "could not [verb] [adj] " in BNC.
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| 1 | We could not identify all such workers as complete records have not survived and instead used the closest approximations possible — namely , records incorporating home address of all those ( more than 17000 ) attending the medical centre at the Sullom Voe oil terminal in Shetland during its construction phase ( believed to represent a high proportion of all but short stay workers ) ; 3500 construction workers at the Flotta oil terminal in Orkney ( incomplete data ) ; and more than 10000 offshore workers , being all those who obtained an offshore survival certificate ( required for such work ) in Scotland in the period from June 1976 ( the earliest date for which records have not been destroyed ) to 1980 . |
| 2 | Even Microsoft 's own managers could not identify pirated copies of the company 's prized Windows and MS-DOS programmes that appeared in Taiwan last year . |
| 3 | Even at first assessment the difficulties faced by these dementia sufferers are apparent : two-thirds could not identify three coins , three out of five could not name three or four parts of a watch , and one half could not tell the time or correctly select a medicine bottle . |
| 4 | This last project is an embarrassingly inappropriate tribute to a man who could not identify any plants , trees or birds that he saw on his journeys except by such vapid statements as ‘ big and little birds of all sorts ’ , ‘ trees very green ’ , and ‘ many trees very different from ours . ’ |
| 5 | But writing in 1987 , Fords could not identify any British university libraries conforming to the Atkinson mode . |
| 6 | They affected to despise her , but they did not find their contempt a strain , whereas the other really bad disciplinarian in the school , a Geography mistress , one Miss Riley , inflicted on them an intolerable suffering , for they felt themselves compelled to torment her , and she would sit before them , thin and pretty and anguished , making vain attempts to restore order , miserably transparent in her misery , and unable to conceal the depths of her humiliation — depths which frightened them , but which they could not leave unplumbed . |
| 7 | But of course I could not simply refuse to co-operate , could not walk out , could not leave poor Clements without doing my best for him . |
| 8 | Moreover , since it came to be accepted by many schools that a pupil could not study these separate subjects at A level unless he or she had already studied them at O level ( although in the 1950s it had been intended that O levels should be ‘ bypassed ’ by those who would study a subject at A level ) the domination of the university faculties began when a pupil was 14 . |
| 9 | For the first time in my life I could not confess all my sins to the priest . |
| 10 | But I could not row more grain without causing an even worse grazing crisis from April to July when three acres are laid up for hay . |
| 11 | Such a challenge could not go unheeded , particularly as it departed from the usual array of Parliamentary or constitutional procedures . |
| 12 | And when she had thought sensation could not go any higher or wider or further , he touched her lightly and tenderly in the vulnerable V between her legs . |
| 13 | ‘ Has n't anyone asked where he got them from ? ’ inquired Scarlet , who still imagined , in her innocence , that in a developed society blatant wrongdoing could not go unobserved and unmentioned . |
| 14 | This was a rebuff which could not go unpunished , especially since the income of the lord of Deols was reputed to be equal to the ordinary revenues of Normandy . |
| 15 | He could not talk any more . |
| 16 | It is true that Paul could not preach that freedom without fairly being asked how the theology works out in practice , especially where the inequalities of society , at least on the surface of things , remain unchanged . |
| 17 | ‘ A bit concerned over X 's honesty , though as yet no evidence ’ and ‘ Mother professes an interest in his welfare but we hear stories of drinking and late night parties ’ — both come from school records but could not stand parental scrutiny . |
| 18 | ‘ You could not stand still for a moment . |
| 19 | The hall fell totally silent , and John Gummer was distinctly heard to say that he could not stand much more of it . |
| 20 | It could not stand alone because it had to be applied to the traditional concerns of physical geographers as outlined in the four previous chapters . |
| 21 | I stuck it out for about an hour , and then could not stand another minute . |
| 22 | I could not stand another hour of the man himself or his bleating sheep of a wife , ’ she said tartly . |
| 23 | They could not distinguish public splendour to dazzle and impress their people and foreigners alike ( if that is the effect their trappings achieved ) from the conveniences of private life . |
| 24 | The social sciences could not satisfy either of these criteria . |
| 25 | It was held that the seller could not recover any of the price since the buyer was no longer the owner of either of the cars , the ownership having reverted to the seller on the resale . |
| 26 | C might ignore the agreement , take coercive action and promote a conflict between itself and A and B. C can not be compelled to accept the terms of the treaty between A and B ; if C acts contrary to the treaty , A and B can not make that the basis of a claim against C. Equally , if the treaty between A and B was in C's interest , C could not enforce that interest through legal proceedings unless it was in fact more than an interest , and amounted to a legally protected right . |
| 27 | So where public house premises in England were sold as " fully licensed " whereas the licence was a six-day licence , the court held that the vendor could not enforce specific performance : Fraser v. Pugsley ( 1920 ) 37 T.L.R. 87 . |
| 28 | But it has been long established ( Habakkuk 1953 , McKeown and Brown 1955 ) that medical knowledge of the time could not cure any important cause of death , could prevent only smallpox , and with a few exceptions remained impotent until the present century . |
| 29 | He was less severe with me than he would have been normally , but I saw I could not expect great leniency from him . |
| 30 | The idea that the colonies might be told to go their own way was not considered ; an administrative system was set up to make sure that the King 's orders were obeyed on the far side of the Atlantic as much as in the more distant parts of the British Isles — it was realized that he could not expect complete obedience , and in some respects the system was losing its impetus even by the beginning of the eighteenth century , but the shift from the Greek pattern of virtual independence to the Roman pattern of general obedience in the colonies had been made and there was no reason to think it would be reversed . |