Example sentences of "[adj] [noun pl] [pron] had been [v-ing] " in BNC.
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| 1 | For the last few hours he had been thinking about James and Kate and the rest of the Mollands , the Salpertons and the Redburns ; and it would not have shocked him if any or all of them who were still alive had turned up unannounced at Number 29 . |
| 2 | For some months he had been making his preparations by placing his men in key positions , so that if and when the moment came , the coup would be swift and , he hoped , bloodless . |
| 3 | Some anomalies which had been arising as a result of the previous piecemeal evolution of means-tested benefit were eliminated . |
| 4 | For some days he had been mulling this over , trying to come up with something more interesting than Wyvis Hall . |
| 5 | The last few days he had been getting on her nerves . |
| 6 | The highest count in the alcohol group was 14.8% in a chronic alcoholic aged 49 years who had been drinking heavily since the age of 15 years . |
| 7 | The plan was designed to give France the initiative in German affairs which had been slipping away from her . |
| 8 | There would always have been a few men who had been dancing barechested all the evening , dancing with the fierce attention of the tango , or the apache ; these were the ones who stayed on late . |
| 9 | The rooms provided were far too small for the thousands of English scholars who were crammed into them , and the originally excessive numbers were heavily augmented by gate-crashing French students who had been hanging around the fringes of the course all week trying to pick up girls at the Lycée doors . |
| 10 | This confirmed rumours which had been circulating in previous months . |
| 11 | Woolton took on to his staff a small group of civil servants who had been working out the implications of the Beveridge report , and also the Uthwatt report on land values . |
| 12 | The blinding headaches he had been experiencing in recent weeks were taking their toll , and he looked grey and drawn when he arrived home . |
| 13 | She could remember Hamlet and the dates of important battles in the Revolutionary War and the names of Disney 's Seven Dwarfs and the telephone numbers of old boyfriends and the faces of people she had known in college but not seen in years and the deadlines for the three pieces she had been working on … |
| 14 | All these years he had been carrying on on the side and now here was actual proof of it . |
| 15 | Eliot , though , is determined , like the anthropological writers he had been reading , to make plain the root of the custom , which he does in the next line , ‘ And flowers of deflowered maids ’ . |
| 16 | Shorter and his lieutenants were wary of a trap and had watched the forest lodge near Caesar 's Camp for several hours before finally making their rendezvous with Baptist Nunn but , as they entered the building , they were surrounded by a dozen officers who had been lying doggo nearby for many hours . |
| 17 | Before the last Test it seemed that Gooch would return home , annoyed at an article written about his South African connections by Lester Bird , the Deputy Prime Minister of Antigua , and tired of the hostile receptions he had been getting from press and public . |
| 18 | Three patients who had been receiving specialist care were back in ordinary wards last night after the unit closed . |
| 19 | The first-class passengers on my train were mainly elderly Australian couples who had been visiting relatives . |
| 20 | The action occurred after Palestinians had attempted to prevent the soldiers arresting three men who had been painting slogans on a wall . |
| 21 | Somehow she managed to take a proper breath , not the little shallow gasps she had been giving up to now . |
| 22 | He had a strange sensation that for many minutes he had been holding his breath , though he could n't of course have been doing that . |
| 23 | Three Swedish engineers who had been working in Kuwait received seven-year sentences on Sept. 20 after also being accused of illegal entry . |
| 24 | Our conversation moved cautiously round the subject of corruption in public life , and I quoted Burke , whose Thoughts on the Present Discontents I had been studying , to the effect that wisdom consisted in part in deciding how much evil to tolerate . |
| 25 | By the end of the " thirties , Aunt Tossie wondered for how many years she had been paying for interesting yearlings , and with very uninteresting results . |
| 26 | One of many photographers who had been lurking among the azaleas seemed to take hope at the sight of such an obviously affectionate couple and presented himself before them . |
| 27 | On the way back to the Hankses ' cottage with Anna , Seb and the navvies met one of the gipsy women who had been enquiring after the missing girl in the village . |
| 28 | Rookies were all the same in the beginning , eager to please and desperate to be judged favourably by their superiors , but within the space of a few months they had become as bitter and cynical as the seasoned policemen they had been trying to impress . |
| 29 | The ex-London United cars which had been working on the Croydon — Mitcham route were now transferred to the Sutton route , to work alongside the J type cars ( 1s-16s ) , four of which were withdrawn and sent to Brixton Hill . |
| 30 | I 'm sorry , ’ he repeated , and the smile he gave her was so gentle that the angry words she had been going to utter died , locked somewhere in her throat . |