Example sentences of "[pron] had be [v-ing] [prep] [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | It dealt with something about which I had been writing to Social Security Ministers for about six months — abuse of the benefit-in-kind regulations , whereby highly paid people were paying themselves in gilt unit trusts . |
| 2 | Whoever expected the little grey devils I had been assaulting with white arrows and rolling with white healing balls to reappear in my lung ? |
| 3 | I think what was different in my approach , and it partly goes back to my background , is that firstly I had been working on educational planning , and that secondly I come from a background of market research . |
| 4 | To support his family , which had been living in grinding poverty in a squalid tenement , he had to emigrate in 1903 to the USA . |
| 5 | The nucleus of the new squadron was provided mainly by ‘ C ’ Flight of 261 Squadron , the unit 's ground component being provided by the latter unit and by 1430 Flight , an army co-operation unit which had been operating in Italian East Africa until the previous month , when the main campaign there had been satisfactorily completed . |
| 6 | MI6 , the Secret Intelligence Service ( SIS ) , began life in 1911 under the control of the Foreign Office , which had been spying on other countries for over 400 years . |
| 7 | This confirmed rumours which had been circulating in previous months . |
| 8 | It was wild and erratic , as though she had been writing under severe emotional strain . |
| 9 | She had been moving in large ellipses , crossing and recrossing her path in a complicated pattern . |
| 10 | A mere two days before she had been deliberating with other world leaders at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe . |
| 11 | She had been so immersed in her anger and indignation that she had been working on automatic pilot herself . |
| 12 | 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 . |
| 13 | During the last minutes she had been talking with extreme rapidity in a light high voice . |
| 14 | He dragged the 18-year-old girl to a nearby common and forced her into humiliating sex acts for more than an hour while the three-month-old baby she had been caring for lay alone in the house . |
| 15 | She tried to recall when she had last passed a house , an AA box , a public telephone , but it seemed to her that she had been driving through deserted countryside for at least ten minutes . |
| 16 | She thought guiltily of the money she had been spending on new clothes and of the new slippers she had ordered with the amethyst decoration . |
| 17 | He had exactly eight minutes to hear a report back from business leaders who had been looking at inner-city schools . |
| 18 | John Mercer [ q.v. ] persuaded him to contact William Gossage [ q.v. ] , who had been experimenting on similar lines , and in 1859 Hargreaves joined Gossage 's soap works . |
| 19 | Griffiths , of Thurlby Road , Redcar , who had been staying in Kentish Town , admitted criminally damaging the telephone booth . |
| 20 | The biggest problem and disappointment was that the international rig count continued downwards and that was where we had been hoping for increased sales and increased market share looking into this year and into the last part of last year . |
| 21 | They had been queueing since early morning in front of the larger shops and the department stores in Sauchiehall Street , Renfield Street and Argyle Street to buy blackout cloth . |
| 22 | A frisson of disbelief and unease passed though the male patrons as the woman they had been watching in simulated copulation on the screen materialised in the flesh before their very eyes . |
| 23 | A judge told William Sim and David Todd that they had been playing for high stakes and had to pay the penalty . |
| 24 | They had been waiting for high water so that they could sail alongside in a civilised manner . |
| 25 | They had been talking in low voices . |
| 26 | They had been paddling in tension-filled silence for some time when he spoke . |
| 27 | Presumably , after carrying out their assignments , they had been returning at irregular intervals and were now preparing their reports for the final session of the afternoon . |
| 28 | It had been running on unheard for some time , in any case . |
| 29 | Molotov concluded the parallel negotiations which he had been conducting with German representatives and thus secured two years grace while partitioning Poland with Nazi Germany . |
| 30 | He had been experimenting with dental floss , which was multi-stranded but then broke when rubbed against rocks or weeds . |