Example sentences of "[was/were] merely a " in BNC.
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| 1 | In these , according to Engels , ideas and institutions were merely a direct reflection of economy and technology . |
| 2 | If it were merely a handful of Irish psychopaths against us , they might be foiled by a piece of pasteboard with a photograph and some numbers stamped on it . |
| 3 | Maxwell Fyfe 's guidelines were never meant to be taken seriously but were merely a piece of bureaucratic window-dressing . |
| 4 | However if evil were merely a hateful and external power without echo in the hearts of the good , then someone might have to take the Ring to the Cracks of Doom , but it need not be Frodo : Gandalf could be trusted with it , while whoever went would have only to distrust his enemies , not his friends and not himself . |
| 5 | Their crimes were merely a low-grade reflection of the competitive and individualistic element in capitalism ; they indulged in an activity which , even in the form of mob violence , could never be effective in the revolutionary movement and , if not crushed , they were more likely to serve as ‘ part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue . ’ |
| 6 | The two of them were merely a couple of outstanding lady tennis players , one of whom had won Wimbledon . |
| 7 | Lévi-Strauss ' famous objections to Sartre , which appeared in the last chapter of The Savage Mind ( 1962 ) , are sometimes represented as if they were merely a structuralist attack on Marxism . |
| 8 | Once he had ( rightly ) rejected that argument , he treated the matter as one for the unfettered exercise of his discretion , in which W. 's views were merely a relatively unimportant factor , and expressed the view that his real choice was between the conflicting medical views of Dr. M. , the consultant psychiatrist in whose care W. had been for over a year , and Dr. G. , supported in the event by Dr. D. , another consultant psychiatrist with specialist experience in the field of anorexia nervosa . |
| 9 | Even at their best in the early '80s , with the great Alison Phillips on drums , they were merely a poor man 's Fall/Three Johns/Creepers , although always reliable for a good live set . |
| 10 | If it were merely a matter of eloquence , or energy or conviction , the education system , like other male institutions , would have been transformed by women already . |
| 11 | We have watched Eastern Europe grapple for freedom and the liberty that we enjoy , yet I have watched the House of Commons talk solemnly as if this were merely a question of a pile of money at one end of a table or the issuing of financial instruments . |
| 12 | We have watched eastern Europe grapple for freedom and the liberty that we enjoy , yet I have heard the House of Commons talk solemnly as if this were merely a question of a pile of money at one end of a table or the issuing of financial intruments . |
| 13 | He resisted , however , the notion that the polytechnics were merely a new breed of university . |
| 14 | Even at their best in the early '80s , with the great Alison Phillips on drums , they were merely a poor man 's Fall/Three Johns/Creepers , although always reliable for a good live set . |
| 15 | But formal requirements of this kind were merely a recognition of reality , of the fact that few diplomats could hope to live on their salaries . |
| 16 | Originally this was merely a method of putting pressure upon the tenant , but the distrainer has had , since the end of the seventeenth century , a power to sell the goods and so pay himself , the surplus ( if any ) going to the owner . |
| 17 | Yes , something was going on inside her : recently , she was pursued by the idea that her love for Paul was merely a matter of will : merely the will to love him ; merely the will to have a happy marriage . |
| 18 | Four fences out , Llewellyn made his move , and from the next it was merely a question of whether Party Politics could hold on or whether Romany King could peg him back . |
| 19 | Mrs Marcos had said the burial was merely a ‘ filial and sacred duty ’ . |
| 20 | One Monday morning I lay in bed looking out of my skylight window at nothing in particular ; there was n't anything to see except sky because the window was merely a hole in the roof which you could open or shut with a long wooden handle . |
| 21 | To assess whether this before — after difference was merely a fluke occurrence the Wilcoxon Test was undertaken and the result proved statistically significant , that is , Z=-7.7565 , 2-tailed , P=0.0000 . |
| 22 | ‘ That paper was merely a preliminary one and was published months ago ! ’ |
| 23 | I never did find out if this was in fact some relation of Boy 's , his Grandfather perhaps , or whether the resemblance between the now-dead soldier and Boy was merely a coincidence . |
| 24 | This pleased his Peripatetic opponents who asserted with Aristotle that sinking or floating was merely a matter of shape . |
| 25 | Initially , he presumed that this phenomenon was merely a personal idiosyncrasy , but later observations showed that this was not the case at all : the tensing-up of neck muscles is practically universal . |
| 26 | The parchment was merely a list drawn up in a clerkly hand describing the effects and property of one ‘ Patrick Seton Esquire ’ . |
| 27 | My Mam was ‘ the boss ’ at home but outside that house she was merely a wife and mother , never a person in her own right . |
| 28 | All this was merely a convention as far as I was concerned , an exercise I had anticipated for nearly ten years . |
| 29 | No one was sure whether he had deliberately set a trap , or whether it was merely a chance remark that brought about such astounding results . |
| 30 | It was merely a new version of an old horror , less tenable than the dreams of childhood , a more rational , more adult terror . |