Example sentences of "had been [vb pp] [to-vb] a [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | That he had a thumb in many pies was undeniable : he served as sheriff in both Surrey and Sussex and had been appointed to head a commission examining the revenues of the confiscated estates of George Duke of Clarence , the king 's brother . |
| 2 | Soon after Haig-Thomas had left us we passed a shrine to Sheikh Husain ; the white-washed dome with four turrets had been built to commemorate a place where the saint had lived alone for years , praying and fasting . |
| 3 | The prison in Matagalpa had been built to hold a maximum of 600 , and in January 1989 there were 530 occupants . |
| 4 | The airstrip itself had been built to serve a golf and diving resort that a consortium of Dutch and American businessmen had planned to build on Straker 's Cay , but the money had run out before the hotel or marina had been built and all that was left of their grandiose plans was this pinkish runway made of compacted coral and a few abandoned cement mixers which rusted forlornly where the hotel 's swimming pool was to have been built . |
| 5 | This was in the foothills of the Mournes , whence he had been sent to take a photograph of bees and beekeeping . |
| 6 | One deaf electrician from Gillingham , Kent , a Thomas Pearce , was shot dead by a sentry in Southport , Lancashire , to which place he had been sent to do a job : he had failed to see the sentry in the dark and the sentry shot him after challenging him three times . |
| 7 | It had , he thought ruefully , been good for his self-conceit to find that her devotion did n't , after all , extend to leaving London where , surprisingly , she had been discovered to have a life of her own , to join him in the fens . |
| 8 | I had been asked to teach a course of lectures at the Teachers ’ College , which is the only place in NZ to run a speech therapy course ( run jointly with the university ) ; so I was staying on for an extra 4 weeks , while the others ( except Ned , who was also staying in Christchurch with his job ) headed for Auckland to fly home . |
| 9 | There were a number of contacts to make , both in New York and on the West Coast ; Cadogan 's was thinking of expanding to San Francisco to take advantage of the considerable artistic activity out there , and he had been asked to spend a week in reconnoitring and reviewing possible sites . |
| 10 | It meant that Mrs Constantine had been asked to attend a meeting and wanted to get out of it at all costs . |
| 11 | If I had been asked to decorate a flat to reflect McIllvanney 's character then I would have given him an East Belfast bar with sawdust scattered on the floor , King Billy strutting on the walls , and blood splattered across its tobacco-stained ceiling . |
| 12 | Sometimes other service-providers failed to understand the symptoms of dementia and therefore took inappropriate decisions on clients ' behalf ; for example , a social worker who had been asked to assess a client for residential care failed to realise that questions about the client 's own preferences would have to be phrased in such a way that the client could understand what was being proposed for her . |
| 13 | Mrs. Steed 's statement , too , dealt with her lack of any recollection of the occasion or knowledge that she had been asked to sign a transfer of the property . |
| 14 | By the end of the first year the members felt sufficiently established to start collecting books and money for the library and had been asked to send a copy of their rules to Oban where it was hoped to form a similar society . |
| 15 | Until then her sole performance would be as guest of honour that evening at the Eastbourne Conservative Club , where she had been asked to unveil a bust in commemoration of Dr Bodkin Adams . |
| 16 | In 1953–54 the figure of 2,982 , down from 3,151 in the previous year , dismayed the District Secretary , especially since branches had been asked to make a drive to recruit new members in Jubilee Year , 1953 . |
| 17 | If Culley had been asked to guess a description of James Court 's house , he would have been almost right . |
| 18 | " The Boy and the Monkey " , and had been asked to write a court report about the trial in that story . |
| 19 | Sufficient signatures had been collected to hold a referendum in the Crimea on independence from Ukraine . |
| 20 | Ian Walker , prosecuting , told Darlington magistrates the man had been followed by a member of staff and had been seen to drop a bag containing the jeans . |
| 21 | They had been invited to spend a week or two at the country house of Mr Josiah Barnet , a banker on Wall Street , whom Mr Carson had met in the course of business . |
| 22 | This was the first time a company had been invited to give a product demonstration at the centre and were keen to present the merits of their product . |
| 23 | Mr Parry said after the meeting of clubs at the Football Association 's Lancaster Gate headquarters yesterday that the chairmen had been determined to produce a settlement . |
| 24 | Owing to her advanced pregnancy and Stephen 's frequent absences on business , no efforts had been made to appoint a governess for Victoria . |
| 25 | He felt that his trust and position had been taken advantage of : that he had been made to look a fool . |
| 26 | In these private centres , applications had been made to run a total of almost 700 individual modules . |
| 27 | It was satisfied that every reasonable effect had been made to obtain a certificate of service . |
| 28 | A slender female torso — headless but with arms — was pinned to the wall ; one shoulder had been flayed to reveal a network of muscles . |
| 29 | The Headmistress at St Mary 's , Geraldine Keegan said she was delighted that her school had been selected to provide a delegate for the Brussels event . |
| 30 | Sherman and Austin were two chimpanzees who had been trained to use a computer keyboard in which the keys carried lexigrams ( geometric patterns ) which related to items ( e.g. JUICE , SWEET POTATO ) or simple activities ( e.g. GIVE , GET , CHASE ) . |