Example sentences of "[was/were] about [prep] " in BNC.

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1 I guess my thought was that , was that in view that there we were doing philosophy the more convergence there would be if we really knew what we were about as philosophers .
2 Having learnt its worst fears were about to be realised , that it would be handed over to Chinese rule in 1997 without external protections or guarantees , it immediately put the best possible face on its situation .
3 As soon as Moran saw McQuaid on his feet again he knew the evening , all the evenings , were about to be broken up and he withdrew back into himself .
4 The company , whose profits for the year to September rose by 16 per cent to £1.66 million , said commercial opportunities , particularly for radio , were about to be expanded significantly .
5 The company , whose profits for the year to September rose by 16 per cent to £1.66 million , said commercial opportunities , particularly for radio , were about to be expanded significantly .
6 The governments of Christian-dominated Lebanon and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan feared that Nasser-inspired coups were about to be sprung in Beirut and Amman .
7 He said it correctly suspecting that the Conservatives were about to be pitched back into opposition by Lord Aberdeen 's coalition of Peelites , Whigs and Liberals .
8 Mr Glynn Ford , Labour leader in the Euro-parliament , said the Tories led by Sir Christopher were about to ‘ live in sin ’ .
9 By 1845 the Pennines between Manchester and Sheffield were about to be conquered , and a terminus in Sheffield was opened at Bridgehouses on July 14th of that year .
10 She calmed down , and told me that she had a sudden impression , walking across the little valley , of women and children in great danger ; nothing else , but a terrible feeling that women and children were about to be harmed .
11 ‘ They were about to , but at this point the man , seeing what had happened , panicked and made a run for it himself on foot .
12 If the crowd anticipate passé renditions of classic ME songs like ‘ I Melt With You ’ they were about to be disillusioned .
13 And they were about to trip over the first foot …
14 They followed the Irishman and other suspects for weeks and launched a series of dramatic raids only when they feared bombs were about to be planted .
15 In 1968 , the watershed year of the student riots in Paris , when most of the new generation of radicals were denouncing the Labour Party as hopelessly fuddy-duddy , he had joined up , believing it would one day become the focus for a new alliance of Right-On movements , Now , more than a decade on , his dream was starting to come true and the new radical politics were about to be released on an unsuspecting populace — with mixed results .
16 The corporate power-brokers who dominated Los Angeles a decade ago when the Olympics were about to be staged — the oil moguls , the aerospace kings , the old movie-studio emperors — have now mostly left the scene : their firms broken up , in the hands of bureaucratic managers or wholly owned by foreigners .
17 One of the ways — perhaps the chief one — in which 1945 — 90 did indeed make a distinct period was that in 1990 those limits were about to be stretched by the provision of satellite services .
18 Mr Bigg said speed restrictions on rail lines in East Anglia were about to be introduced because there was not enough money for line maintenance .
19 As soon as you saw that you were about to be struck , you stood at attention and waited for the blows .
20 The snuffles and crunches of some unknown thing convinced my grandad that we were about to be mugged .
21 Nevertheless it was brought before the House , Baldwin came down , spoke movingly of ‘ our young King and Queen ’ who were about to ‘ dedicate themselves to the service of their people ’ , and pulled out , gently and without tension , all his old stops about industrial peace , democracy and the avoidance of strife .
22 But he took such duties seriously ; he often had to give his opinion on the work of young poets who were about to be dispatched into the war : and he knew that his comments might be the last they ever received .
23 and the fives courts were about to be demolished .
24 Thucydides , an acute social historian when he wants to be , remarks that ‘ most of the dealings between the Spartans and their helots were of a precautionary character ’ ( iv.80 ) , and tells a suitably laconic story of two thousand specially manly helots who were garlanded and led round the temples as if they were about to be given their freedom ; they were never seen again and nobody knew what happened to them .
25 They took their seats on canvas chairs which were placed side by side on the strip of red tiling , as if they were about to be photographed or to review a marching column .
26 On departure , many of the younger guests , deeming themselves insufficiently primed , were about to ‘ go on ’ somewhere , and in the end I found myself alone on the pavement with Eliot .
27 Detectives believe they were about to be shipped to the manufacturing base in a spare room of the house in Highgate .
28 You were about to be hauled into his car , whatever your mind decided . ’
29 It somehow seemed to be a cutting-off point , as if they were about to be flown away from any contact with civilisation .
30 On Dec. 19 Yeltsin returned early from an official visit to China [ see also p. 39236 ] , apparently because of fears that conservative figures were about to be promoted to government posts .
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