Example sentences of "[num] [noun pl] [pron] had been [v-ing] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | 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 . |
| 2 | 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 … |
| 3 | 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 . |
| 4 | Three patients who had been receiving specialist care were back in ordinary wards last night after the unit closed . |
| 5 | The action occurred after Palestinians had attempted to prevent the soldiers arresting three men who had been painting slogans on a wall . |
| 6 | She had had fewer than a dozen poems published in magazines — usually small , regional ones — during the twenty-five years she had been writing . |
| 7 | Abie Klugman had long grown used to the taunt — it was Aronson 's stock joke for all of the ten years they had been lodging with Mrs Neumann , and he no longer minded it . |
| 8 | I presume neither Mr Baker nor Mrs Rumbold was aware that for over ten years I had been conducting a campaign to make creative writing a central feature of the English curriculum , and that in October 1983 I helped to organise a manifesto on this subject which was published in the Times Higher Education Supplement . |
| 9 | While waiting around for five months he had been planning to do a story on a particular platoon of sixteen guys , which was very promising at first and the men enthusiastic and helpful . |
| 10 | His name was Dr Georges Flandrin and for five years he had been treating the Shah for cancer . |
| 11 | And for the last five years he had been doing just that . |
| 12 | FOUR of the five gunmen who had been occupying the Nicaraguan embassy in San Jose , Costa Rica , for nearly two weeks left the country yesterday a few hours after the siege had ended peacefully . |
| 13 | More distressingly , we discovered that the Aru islands and the Greater Bird of Paradise were no longer on their trading routes and that for the last twenty years they had been pursuing the shorter and more profitable triangular passage between Celebes , Java and Borneo . |
| 14 | For the past twenty years he had been trying to show the ‘ educated classes ’ the merits of Gothic and now found them acknowledged ‘ by the highest authorities in the land ’ . |
| 15 | Twenty patients who had been taking NSAIDs for more than six months underwent a screening phase and all 13 with NSAID enteropathy were recruited to the study . |
| 16 | ‘ For the last four summers I had been working at Appel Farm Arts and Music Centre in New Jersey as head of music , ’ Ken explained . |
| 17 | The two guards who had been holding him released him and stood back . |
| 18 | In the two years they had been operating , Stephen had taught her never to lose her temper with the guests , however unreasonable , but to try to win them over . |
| 19 | Her paternal family is opposed to the sect and some years before these events Miss T. had been reunited with her paternal grandmother and her father and for the past two years she had been living in circumstances which would not be approved by the sect . |
| 20 | For the past two days he had been saying so to all who would listen . |
| 21 | For the past two days she had been dreading the proximity this trip would involve , but gradually , as the car wound its way along the narrow mountain roads , she could feel herself beginning to relax . |
| 22 | For four years I had been planning this journey , and the thought of exploring Aussa and discovering what happened to the Awash had seldom been out of my mind . |
| 23 | Two figures who had been walking ahead of them , suddenly turned and came sauntering back . |
| 24 | Slowly , like a black storm cloud that builds up ominously on a distant horizon , the second of the two Men who had been feeding the eagles advanced on Woil . |
| 25 | As they entered the little hall , two detectives who had been playing cards swept their cards off the table like schoolboys caught in the act . |
| 26 | In the letters Bush suggested compromise terms for the two issues which had been holding up an agreement on a conference , namely the question of UN representation and the nature of the conference itself . |
| 27 | Films such as Citron 's Daughter Rite adopted a format borrowed from the personal testimony ( the diary , the autobiographical voice ) but exposed the illusory nature of ‘ unmediated ’ film-making by revealing in the credits that the two women who had been reminiscing in the film were in fact actresses playing sisters . |
| 28 | The car rolled over on to its back with a grinding crash , exposing beneath it the bloodied meat of the two policemen who had been supervising the cordon . |
| 29 | He was clad in the same white coveralls as the half-dozen policemen who had been working over the room , like a coven of wraiths . |