Example sentences of "[noun] have been [adv] a [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Unveiling the 28th edition , associate editor Alison Holding said : ‘ The recession has been quite a leveller . |
| 2 | Of course debate about the National Curriculum has been around a lot longer , but its popularisation and public debate is a relatively recent phenomenon . |
| 3 | As far as I am concerned , Bergman has been officially a man since the end of the Upper Removes . |
| 4 | After David had been there a couple of weeks , I used to go off doing odd bits of work in London , working as a journalist , although I was n't very keen on that side of my life at the time — there were other things that interested me more . |
| 5 | At that time she had known few people in the district , for they were among the first of the incomers , and Camille had been only a baby with the consequent ailments , accidents and dissatisfactions . |
| 6 | Up to this period , mining had been essentially a hand-craft where , as in farming , man-power and horse-power had been the chief means of winning the product . |
| 7 | The mainland campaign had been just a foretaste of what might be coming , he said . |
| 8 | The mainland campaign had been just a foretaste of what might be coming in the next two months , said RUC Chief Constable Sir Hugh Annesley . |
| 9 | If the last two decades have been just a trifle one-sided , before that the competition was excellent , with first one side holding sway and then the other , which is as it should be . |
| 10 | The London period had been primarily a test of willpower and improvisation . |
| 11 | But poverty had been just a word , an image on a screen — until now . |
| 12 | Thatcherism has been both a matter of style — combining impatience with much of the status quo and a relentless promotion of new attitudes — and policies . |
| 13 | The upheavals in Africa had been only a rehearsal . |
| 14 | The hulking nephew of Kalv Arnason had been only a youth when King Olaf had killed his uncle Ølve at the spring feast at Sparbu and had given to Kalv his uncle 's rich widow in gratitude . |
| 15 | Jakki had been there a week when , in true fairytale fashion , one of the regular disc jockeys upped and left . |
| 16 | The pretence that his , Surkov 's , opening had been merely a dream was a pathetic cliché . |
| 17 | Darren had been dead a couple of months ; I had fallen out with my father and I 'd been in London for most of the summer , staying with Aunt Ilsa and her long-term companion , whose only name appeared to be Mr Gibbon , which I thought made him sound like a cat for some reason … |
| 18 | It 's author , John Godber , told me that working out how to stage the ski , the scenes on the slopes had been quite a headache for them , particularly as the set of course , has to be constantly moved from theatre from theatre as it tours round the country . |
| 19 | How last year the crop had meant nothing to him at all ; how , without understanding , he had walked about the harbour and warehouses of Episkopi , and the misuse of the Order 's cargo of sugar had been simply a matter noted and used as a playing-counter . |
| 20 | However , all serious historians have noted that the 1925 decisions had been merely a formality , more honoured in the breach than in their application . |
| 21 | Chalmers 's form has been quite a contrast to last season , when he was often indecisive in his play and tended to look for gaps which rarely existed before passing or kicking . |
| 22 | Cetera was subsequently cleared ( only to die later in mysterious circumstances ) but the real worry , for the DIA , was that the Italian court also found that the drug trafficking had been merely a cover , to justify payments to the Kabbaras as DEA informants . |
| 23 | But Ben was staring down at where his left hand had been only a moment before , sounding the chord . |
| 24 | The chilli also meant that Praeger had been just a wire man with orders not to kill anybody who came at him just blind them and run . |
| 25 | Until this point , the structure of government outside Whitehall had been merely a matter which worried civil servants who wished to see their departmental policies executed more rapidly and efficiently , though some Liberals , some academics and sections of the ‘ quality press ’ had shown a passing interest in the subject . |
| 26 | Until now Sarajevo airport has been almost a haven from the gunfire . |
| 27 | In the past , and sometimes even in the present , bad environmental management of rivers has been only a part and a symptom of bad man-management . |
| 28 | Membership of the ILP had been largely a formality for the remaining four-fifths of the original group , though some active ILP members like Dr Alfred Salter and Emanuel Shinwell were among those severing their connections with the party . |
| 29 | Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk , making a public apology for Ukraine 's part in the massacre , acknowledged for the first time that Babi Yar had been primarily a massacre of Jews , and commentators noted that the ceremony was also a way of emphasising the government 's insistence on minority rights in Ukraine ( where 500,000 Jews still lived ) . |
| 30 | Such changing managerial attitudes have been largely a result of declining profitability and the increasing challenge of Japanese firms . |