Example sentences of "[noun pl] [vb past] been a [adj] [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Many , probably the great majority of the population , were convinced by 1939 if not before that the Jews had been a harmful influence in German society , and that it would be better if those still remaining left ( or were forced to leave ) as soon as possible . |
| 2 | To make the most of beneficial planetary influences had been a principal object of Marsilio Ficino ( 1433–99 ) , one of the first scholars to give the practice of magic the semblance of respectability . |
| 3 | For Diana , the last few months had been an emotional rollercoaster as she had tried to come to terms with her new life as a public figure and the suffocating publicity as well as her husband 's ambiguous behaviour towards her . |
| 4 | Their lives had been a circular journey : no less than nine of them had spent their schooldays there . |
| 5 | Tobias had been a poor choice , as Jonadab himself admitted . |
| 6 | Mr Major told MPs that the awarding of honours had been a valued part of British life for centuries but the system must from time to time be reviewed . |
| 7 | Those limitations had been a great attraction to Anna , when they first met . |
| 8 | Courtrooms The lack of sufficient courtrooms had been a continuing problem , but should be resolved when the new courts in the Thomas More Building came into use in January 1990 . |
| 9 | Other resolutions included : the adoption of a Common Resident Card for all citizens and measures to facilitate travel and residence rights and the movement of goods by road within the community ; the establishment of a Standing Mediation Committee in response to the conflicts between member states ; the eventual establishment of a single economic community in West Africa ; the approval of a new assessment of members ' contributions to the budget — once again , non-payment of contributions had been a contentious issue ; and agreement to ratify all protocols by Dec. 31 , 1990 . |
| 10 | Dealing with Francis 's belongings had been a useful excuse , when all I had really wanted was to meet with Leon Kennedy , arrange a conclusive deal . |
| 11 | Forty thousand pounds he had paid for it , a sum which now seemed laughably small , but which in those days had been a vast amount to pay for a private house , even in such a prime position . |
| 12 | His early defence of Shelley and Milton against T. S. Eliot 's attacks had been a paradoxical defence of their classicism of style ; his influential essay on metre a defence of using classical terms to describe English poetry ; and his finest work of literary history , awkwardly entitled ( as part of a series ) English Literature in the Sixteenth Century excluding Drama ( 1954 ) , extolled the ‘ golden ’ voice of Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser , as opposed to ‘ drab ’ , in a critical climate in which Metaphysicals like Donne and Herbert counted for more than their courtly forerunners among the Elizabethans . |
| 13 | Its dereliction over the past two years had been a constant topic of conversation . |
| 14 | The insistence on separate sources had been an ill-judged reaction to the Reformation Scriptura sola ; now , by viewing both Scripture and Tradition as dynamic realities , they can be seen as intimately connected , gifts of the one Spirit , in a way that satisfied not only almost all the Council 's members , but even the Reformed observers ( Schutz and Thurian , 1968 , ch. 2 ) . |
| 15 | Many secondees had been a considerable time in their pre-secondment posts and were looking for variety . |
| 16 | They had tried to head these off , but because they could slip into the lanes and wynds of the town , this had proved difficult , Ramsay interrupted to demand whether one of these fugitives had been a tall man in shirt and breeches ; but they said that in the darkness they could not tell . |
| 17 | The barbarian kings had been a great source of perplexity to the Christian bishops of the early Middle Ages . |
| 18 | The three men had been an advance squad ; trained technicians . |
| 19 | The men were correct that their arrests had been a political decision . |
| 20 | They assumed that their arrests had been a political move and began to suspect that their continued detention had equally a political motive . |
| 21 | However , without exception , all the women had to make some economies because their wages had been an essential part of the household economy and their benefits were too low to compensate for their lost earnings . |
| 22 | Vecchi had been an interested party . |
| 23 | Mines had been a potential hazard at or near the scene of fighting or port approaches since 1983 . |
| 24 | Famines had been a cyclical phenomenon in the Volga region , as they had been in Asia , for centuries . |
| 25 | A possible explanation of this is that Ecgberht was indeed regarded as Ealhmund 's heir and that Ealhmund in turn inherited from King Ecgberht of Kent a local overlordship of south-eastern England which in varying forms had been a recurring feature of historical development in the area since the time of Aethelberht , son of Eormenric . |
| 26 | The repeal of these laws had been a persistent demand of human rights and opposition groups . |
| 27 | He writes that the issue of women priests had been a main cause of the Crockford 's row . |
| 28 | The counselling by social services had been an enormous help . |
| 29 | Interesting to me , that is , because my only previous contact with the world of spirits had been an eerie couple of evenings spent with two schoolgirl friends , when we were all sixteen , ‘ table tapping ’ . |
| 30 | The star publicly admitted that he had the disease only 24 hours before he died last November , but his friend , David Minns , said media rumours had been a constant worry to him . |