Example sentences of "[noun] had been [to-vb] [art] [noun] " in BNC.
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| 1 | One of the first rules of house and hall parties had been to scout the building for dark corners that might make useful retiring-places if the evening went well — preference was given to anywhere that had a lock on the inside . |
| 2 | Clearly Dorothy 's principal intention had been to record the apple harvest — a prodigious one ; Helen 's presence was incidental , like one of those figures introduced for purposes of scale or composition . |
| 3 | The intention had been to give the premiere of Sea Change at Sadler 's Wells to open the Theatre Ballet 's new season there , but it was thought that by then John would already have left for New York to take part in the Sadler 's Wells Ballet 's first American tour , so the decision was made to present the ballet first on 18 July 1949 at the Gaiety Theatre , Dublin , where the company concluded its summer tour . |
| 4 | Godard 's intention had been to accompany the reading with its author descending stairs , naked , in order to confront the viewer , it was assumed , with the contrast between argument , theory , and the sexual objectification of women . |
| 5 | A hundred years of missionary effort had failed utterly ; its only effect had been to confirm the Abyssinians in their attachment to their ancient faith and to sow in them the seeds of xenophobia . |
| 6 | His constitutional plan had been to secure the election of his son , the young Frederick , as king , but as soon as the emperor was known to be dead the wisdom of upholding the election of so young an heir was questioned . |
| 7 | It was not so much a guidance note as a review ; the Committee 's terms of reference had been to consider the design and layout most appropriate to various types of roads in built-up areas , with due regard to safety , the free Mow of road traffic , economy and the requirements of town planning , and to make recommendations . |
| 8 | In an end-of-year assessment at Westminster , Mr Ashdown admitted that when he became leader , his job had been to stabilise a party ‘ in a fast downward spiral of disintegration ’ . |
| 9 | Their job had been to locate the communications nerve-centres surrounding Bremen . |
| 10 | He added that the MBR 's task at the time of the coup had been to establish the basis " for a profound transformation … in the juridical-political and socio-economic areas " . |
| 11 | His concern throughout the crisis had been to keep the principles of the UN Charter in the minds of all the parties involved ; not only Article 1 , setting out the purpose of the UN , the maintenance of international peace and security , but Article VII , which excludes intervention in matters subject to any state 's domestic jurisdiction . |
| 12 | One of Chaovalit 's many Cabinet responsibilities had been to head the government 's Counter Corruption Commission ( CCC ) . |
| 13 | One major American aim at the conference had been to limit the power of the Japanese , who since their victories over China in 1895 and over Russia in 1905 , had made increasing demands on China . |
| 14 | The initial objective of the ITE initiative had been to encourage a reorientation of the work supported by ITAB into avenues of relevance to the engineering community , using the existing committee structure as far as possible . |
| 15 | In establishing a Peace Council the aim had been to create a body composed of representatives of associations , political parties , the private sector and the government to design a new peace strategy . |
| 16 | Her aim had been to get the girls excited about mathematics , and to give them confidence in their own ability . |
| 17 | This act left him with an interest in the company that was for most practical purposes worthless since the previous practice among the three member-directors had been to take the money out of the firm in the form of directors ' fees rather than shareholders ' dividends . |
| 18 | Its aim in threatening to intercept the Dae Hung Ho had been to underscore the US position against missile proliferation in the region . |
| 19 | The usual way of coping with their father had been to make no reference to anything untoward that might have happened , for fear of bringing it all upon them again . |
| 20 | For at least twenty-five years , Western policy had been to help the Shah destroy all alternatives to his own rule . |
| 21 | If the objective of his policy had been to maintain a balance of power by opposing the strongest nation in Europe , he was no doubt picking the wrong enemy ; France was the rising power , and later in the century English policy was devoted to holding her in check . |
| 22 | The 17-member Co-Ordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls ( COCOM ) , the body whose main role had been to regulate the sale of Western technology to communist countries , agreed in Paris on June 1-2 to invite the former Soviet republics to join its newly established COCOM Co-Operation Forum on Export Controls . |
| 23 | I recall that two years ago at the NFT he announced that his great ambition as a young man had been to become a movie director : now ( aided by director of photography William Lubtchansky and production designer Chloe Obolensky ) he has made a landmark television film . |
| 24 | All that scuffling had been to move an armchair round to the front of the desk . |
| 25 | He retorted that the choice had been to close the paper and he wished he had done that because it would have been remembered as a decent publication . |
| 26 | His first choice had been to combine the Tchaikovsky concerto with a complete recording of the composer 's Souvenir d'un lieu cher ( Op. 42 ) , in the orchestrated version by Glazunov . |
| 27 | A captured guerrilla said that the aim of the attack had been to undermine the visit of Pope Jean-Paul II which was due in early September [ see p. 37732 ] . |
| 28 | Considering the effects of language on delicate sensibilities , John Mortimer — whose main concern had been to keep the Sex Pistols as far away from court as possible — pondered that the word Maidenhead did not appear to cause the inhabitants of that town any problems . |
| 29 | The application was renewed to the full court ( Taylor L.J. , Waterhouse and Kennedy JJ. ) on 5 March 1992 and was granted , the grounds of appeal being , that conversations between the undercover police officers and the appellant were interviews and , therefore , the rules in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 ( s. 66 ) Codes of Practice ( ‘ the PACE Codes ’ ) ought to have been but were not observed , that the effect of the police operation had been to trick the appellant and his co-accused into self-incrimination , and that pursuant to Reg. v. Sang [ 1980 ] A.C. 402 the court ought to have excluded the evidence under section 78 of the Act of 1984 . |
| 30 | Her brief had been to visit a number of Northern provincial collections and select works that would fit neatly within her chosen theme . |