Example sentences of "[pron] had been a [adj] [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | With regard to point ( c ) , I had been a teensy bit lazy in the last few maths lessons , not having worked on the set tasks with much enthusiasm at all . |
| 2 | I knew later I had been a damn fool but … |
| 3 | Was this the point at which to say that I had been a professional actress for over thirty years and was well aware of the mechanics etc ? |
| 4 | Although Fair Isle is officially part of Shetland , and I had been a keen birdwatcher since I was a boy , I had never had the opportunity to visit the island until I had started to work for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds . |
| 5 | She told us : ‘ The first time I saw this lady from the Foundation for Global Unity in Canterbury , she told me I had been a young boy in one of the Balkan countries , where slaves were being used to cut down all the trees . |
| 6 | In the middle of many clashes and difficulties were the men whom I had met , and to whom , if I had been a true friend , I might have given something of the faith and spirit which could have helped them find a better way for their people . |
| 7 | I had been a dutiful daughter , an elegant accessory , a nurse and business manager in the service of three men . |
| 8 | I have sometimes gone into it when the King was absent from Delhi and once pretty far I thought , for the purpose of giving my advice in the case of a great lady so ill that she could not be moved to the outward gate ; but a Kachemire shawl covered my head , hanging like a large scarfe down to my feet , and a eunuch led me by the hand , as if I had been a blind man . |
| 9 | JC : Kenneth Green had designed our production of Cosi fan tutte which had been a great success . |
| 10 | Behind him the eastern sky was already brightening , and the wasteland , which had been a formless void of darkness above the lumpy earth , was assuming an identity and a shape . |
| 11 | The kitchen , which had been a uniform grey , was dappled with sunlight , she saw ; outside , a blackbird sang . |
| 12 | The agreement did not provide for a specific " quota of power " for the FMLN , an issue which had been a major sticking-point in negotiations . |
| 13 | Raoul Cédras , which had been a major demand of Aristide . |
| 14 | ( The ban on presidential re-election , which had been a central issue in the Mexican revolution of 1910 , was seen by the opposition as a bulwark against the consolidation of authoritarian PRI rule in an effectively single-party state . ) |
| 15 | They 'd gone to see another hill , which had been a Roman fort , covered in ferns now . |
| 16 | It was Willans who advised Rolt 's parents to apprentice him as a mechanical engineer , and it was with great enthusiasm that in 1926 the boy left Cheltenham College , which had been a miserable experience for him , to serve as a pupil at Bomfords , an agricultural engineering firm at Pitchill near Evesham . |
| 17 | The Plymouth Brethren were founded in that year of 1820 , by an Anglican ex-clergyman , on the basis of strict Calvinism , which had been a considerable influence earlier on John Wesley , but not embraced by him . |
| 18 | But he was in a peer mechanism which had been a longstanding thing with trade unionism management for many years , with no replacement . |
| 19 | After a hurried cup of tea at my house we were on our way to do a climb which had been a longstanding ambition of Norman 's — Via Media on Craig Aderyn , probably the best medium-grade slab pitch in Snowdonia . |
| 20 | He had written it under the supervision of James Blackadder , which had been a discouraging experience . |
| 21 | And he himself had been a faithful husband , not that he had n't had his chances — of course he 'd had his chances — other supplications and wooing had come his way , more spirited too than that woman from the stationery shop . |
| 22 | She had been a regular person once , but that had been before the voices started up in her head , before the dead woman got out of her rocking chair , before the preacherman reached into her mind and gave it a sharp twist … |
| 23 | In any case , even if she had been a skilled charmer it was not possible to allure somebody who slashed back at you like a master swordsman and drove the point in . |
| 24 | If she had been a religious person she would have put it down to retribution for her sins , but she had lost whatever faith she had had in her years as the Madam of Dublin 's most fashionable brothel . |
| 25 | She had been a battered baby , grew up in a succession of foster homes , and then married a man who regularly beat her up . |
| 26 | He held her against him , nursing her as though she had been a small child , while looking down into her face . |
| 27 | ‘ Gross exaggeration , ’ Fabia laughed , but could n't deny that she had been a great fan of the Czech composers , and still was . |
| 28 | ‘ She had been a lifelong friend of the Abrams , ’ Mr Burke said . |
| 29 | When she had been a tiny child , and Fenna had still been a small , manageable and undemanding dragon she had , often spoken of him , to her mother who had grinned , to her grandmother who had smiled , and to her schoolteachers and friends , who had laughed indulgently . |
| 30 | Her senior by fourteen years , she had been a splendid nursemaid and even after marriage , while rearing her own family , Edna had still managed to do part-time cleaning and a weekly wash in the Tremayne household . |