Example sentences of "[noun] had [been] [v-ing] on [prep] " in BNC.

  Next page
No Sentence
1 Her admirer had already been bound over to keep the peace after being arrested on her doorstep , and his unwelcome attentions had been going on for over six years .
2 The experiments , however , involved drawing fibres and blowing bubbles of molten glass and one day , after the work had been going on for some months , Lockspeiser went home leaving the gas torch used for melting the glass still burning .
3 Their success revealed the misunderstanding had been going on for six years .
4 Looking back I find it hard to believe that I did n't keep abreast of all the war news ; but the war had been going on for so long that I , like almost every girl of my generation , had lost interest in it .
5 When questioned they admitted that this state of affairs had been going on for some time .
6 These claims were never universally accepted ; the destruction of the unity of Christendom by the Reformation helped to undermine the authority of the Pope to allocate territory , but it was Catholic France that first challenged Spain 's position in the West Indies and that conflict had been going on for some years when in 1559 , at the end of one round of European wars , France and Spain included in the peace treaty a clause which stated that fighting in regions west of the Azores or south of the Tropic of Cancer was not to be taken as a reason for resuming hostilities in Europe .
7 Negotiations for a concordat had been going on between Spain and the Vatican for about the same length of time as those between Spain and the United States .
8 The search for Louise Butler had been going on for over two days .
9 The argument had been going on for some time .
10 I thought this phone call had been going on for hours .
11 In their defence the party leadership could argue that they had been hampered by the lack of a parliamentary majority ; the choice had been hanging on by the skin of one 's teeth or of giving up and holding an election in the face of adverse opinion polls .
12 All this happened in early spring — the third week in March , I think — and for several weeks of the previous summer Inez had been carrying on with a man staying at one of the St Ives hotels .
13 The affair had been going on for nearly two years .
14 The pupils had been going on at me about ‘ You 're always picking on me ’ ' and then finally the boy said to him that he was picking on him because he was black and he said ‘ That just triggered it off ’ .
15 It was not until the bombing had been going on for almost a week that the Iraqi foreign minister issued a protest .
16 Negotiations had been going on for 17 months before the strike .
17 A National Grid spokesman yesterday confirmed negotiations had been going on with landowners but he said it was perfectly normal procedure .
18 Investigations into the activities of this particular smuggling gang had been going on for nearly twelve months prior to the climax of Yashmak and were initiated in Sussex .
19 In many , the enclosure award of Georgian days was only the final clearing-up of remnants of open field that survived after piecemeal enclosure had been going on for generations or even centuries .
20 But the two men had argued that the emergency had been going on in Northern Ireland for so long , it was a question whether it was a crisis situation or if it had become normal .
21 ‘ In the end I could n't bear to be anywhere else , ’ she said , and added that if such practices had been going on in the islands as were alleged , everyone would have known about them .
22 The raids had been going on for months , but had become increasingly violent : by mid-May they involved border posts being strafed with bullets or set on fire .
23 A wider political initiative , with UN armed observers escorting food and convoys , and increased financial output , was not launched until as late as August , by which time looting of food supplies had been going on for some months .
  Next page