Example sentences of "had [been] [v-ing] [prep] [art] [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | In 1962 H. H. Hess , of Princeton University in the USA , published a radical explanation for much of the geological data that had been accumulating over the previous decade or so . |
| 2 | Her husband had been serving in the British Merchant Navy on the Russian Convoy run but after 1943 he was receiving psychiatric treatment in Shropshire somewhere for his nerves . |
| 3 | Then Andy took his wedge , which he had been swinging for the last ten minutes , and hit the perfect , or apparently perfect shot , straight at the flag . |
| 4 | The report focused on a United States pharmaceutical company , Velsicol Chemical Corporation , which had been exporting to the Third World large quantities of chlordane and heptachlor , " two of the most highly toxic persistent and bio-accumulative insecticides ever made " according to the report . |
| 5 | While Francis had been gazing into the unseeable distance , the wall had extended several metres across the clearing . |
| 6 | This time there was no mistaking the command , but , short of trying out one of the manoeuvres she had been learning in a regular martial arts class , there was n't much she could do about it . |
| 7 | In the early hours of Sunday 13 February 1692 , Captain Campbell , from a clan hostile to the Macdonalds , along with 120 of his soldiers , whom the Macdonalds had been entertaining for the previous fortnight , suddenly fell upon their hosts and butchered them , shooting Macdonald himself in the back and killing nearly 70 men , women and children . |
| 8 | The latter manifests itself as smooth , waxy blobs on fins and skin , making the fish look as though it had been swimming under a dripping candle . |
| 9 | Since he 'd arrived at Montpelier Square he had been listening for the slightest movement elsewhere in the flat . |
| 10 | He spun the radio tuner at random , to leave no evidence for prying eyes that he had been listening to a foreign station . |
| 11 | On the seminary hill a strange edifice had been constructing over the last previous months . |
| 12 | The wild boar had been hiding behind a large and actually rather unconvincing bush for a hundred years or so . |
| 13 | But in his heart he knew that he had been speaking to a troubled spirit , a spirit that had something terrible to confess . |
| 14 | Leith mentally shook herself to join in the conversation , realising that her mother had been speaking of the wonderful opportunities there were for world-wide travelling these days . |
| 15 | Reports at the turn of the year 1942–3 referring in the usual glowing terms of undiminished confidence of the people in ‘ its beloved Führer ’ and claiming that ‘ the person of the Führer was as always put beyond criticism ’ had been speaking in the conventional exaggerations of the regime 's apparatchiks . |
| 16 | Franca , who had been leaning against the big warm cast-iron stove with a spoon in her hand , threw down the spoon with a clang and marched through the door into her sitting room . |
| 17 | Dr Hadley , who had asked the questions , ceased to play with the two-toned ball pen he had been using as a remote muscle of his tongue . |
| 18 | Obviously a tall , long-legged person will need a big horse ; I recently sold a 17.3hh gelding to a man of six foot eight who had been looking for a long time ! |
| 19 | I had been looking for a full-length piece to do anyway and I was also attracted to the idea of working with a ballet company . ’ |
| 20 | If Philip had been looking for a pale , sickly , ragged and possibly fettered prisoner , Harry would be a considerable shock to him . |
| 21 | You may lose some credibility with the clientele if you demolish him or her with a blitzkrieg attack only to find later that they had been looking for the nearest toilet ! |
| 22 | Amid the protests to date , perhaps the most telling line has come from Newtownards woman Phyllis Bibby whose petition demanding urgent changes in the system had been meeting with a poor response . |
| 23 | When I was eighteen I came in contact with the Catholic Crusade which was a rather left wing Christian Socialist Organization and I found that their attitude to problems contained the answers for which I had been searching for a good many years tell me when you want me to raise something . |
| 24 | Mandy 's parents had been understandably concerned at her friendship with Mark , but their demands on her had been bordering on the unreasonable . |
| 25 | Balmer had been thinking about the spectral lines from hydrogen . |
| 26 | She had been thinking of the three men downstairs , though perhaps one could hardly count John as being in the running . |
| 27 | The sightseers on the banks of the river , who , sensing something afoot , had been gathering for a few hours , dodged about , seeking a view between bushes . |
| 28 | In 1613 , for example , the king married his daughter Elizabeth to Frederick of the Palatinate , one of the leading figures of European Calvinism ; similarly , in 1618 four representatives of the English church attended the Synod of Dort , the conference called to resolve the bitter dispute which had been raging in the United Provinces over the doctrine of predestination . |
| 29 | Alfred 's shop looked as though it had been closed and deserted for months ; it was hard to believe that it was only three days since a few people , at least , had been entering through the rickety door with its small glass panes to buy patent medicines or seek advice . |
| 30 | Thornton had been pushing for the same sort of readership , and the two men had another thing in common — they wanted action . |