Example sentences of "had been [v-ing] the [noun] for " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Writers , poets and bards had been telling the stories for centuries but it was not until the Victorians that a visual interpretation was recorded and that was essentially romantic and ill-informed . |
| 2 | Mrs Taylor said she had been urging the Government for months to make public a report by Mr Ponsford confirming the morale problems . |
| 3 | Over 90 per cent of the heroin users at each agency had been using the drug for between one month and five years . |
| 4 | Tawell 's second piece of bad luck was when the tenacious Dr Champney , who had been searching the countryside for the dark-robed perpetrator of the crime , noticed him boarding the train . |
| 5 | While the Blue Streak saga was being played out , Macmillan and McLeod had been setting the stage for Britain 's final withdrawal from Empire . |
| 6 | At the time of his controversial dismissal from Manchester United , the News Of The World revealed that a team of private detectives , hired by a group of businessmen closely linked to some of the club 's directors , had been pursuing The Doc for nearly two years . |
| 7 | Mr Moore had been displaying the Spitfire for nine years before the accident , and was regarded very highly as a master of the machine |
| 8 | Victoria Hernandez , telecommunications analyst for InfoCorp Europe , Paris , said the French and Swiss operators had been discussing the agreement for some time , trying to iron out the administrative problems involved . |
| 9 | She had been watching the tumble-drier for ages and still her clothes were n't quite dry . |
| 10 | The two militia leaders had been boycotting the Cabinet for several months . |
| 11 | I had a first class team of managers , with Eric Newton as head of the engineering section — he had been doing the job for years before I even joined the Branch — and Dick Westlake , who was a former colleague in KLM , as one Principal Inspector . |
| 12 | Diana had been blaming the Highlands for what was a far more fundamental malady . |
| 13 | I knew there were other bags of cubes in the kitchen refrigerator , so , feeling that I had been walking the train for a lifetime , I went along through the dining room to fetch some . |
| 14 | His name was Dr Georges Flandrin and for five years he had been treating the Shah for cancer . |
| 15 | Having completed our ‘ good for us ’ walk , we settled down by one of the two huge log fires with our paperbacks in the happy anticipation that tea would arrive promptly at four and would consist of improbably thinly cut home-made bread and butter and other bakings , whose smell had been pervading the lounge for some time with forecasts of gratifications to come . |
| 16 | The move follows the £1.4m out-of-court settlement agreed in July with the Tunstall Group , which had been suing the firm for damages for the losses it had incurred in purchasing Sound Diffusion shares ( see ACCOUNTANCY , August , p 15 ) . |
| 17 | Before UPH came on the scene , Finnegan Menton had been offering the site for £2.7m . |
| 18 | I think it must have been left by workmen who had been preparing the crypt for the disposal of some saintly relic or the body of a recently deceased priest . |
| 19 | In anticipation of this , and at a time when the economy was already in grave crisis as a result of the US economic embargo , the collapse of trade with eastern Europe ( currently down by an estimated 90 per cent ) and poor sugar harvests , the Cuban government had been preparing the population for worse times ahead . |
| 20 | Probably he was already dressed for the part in a brown peat-carrier 's suit : he had been anticipating the trip for at least a month . |
| 21 | They had been defending the building for 31 days and there was blood on the floor . |
| 22 | The Home Secretary , Sir Samuel Hoare , noted that any influx of refugees from the continent might bring together the political extremes — the fascists who had been attacking the Jews for three years and the communists and other left-wing elements who might argue that Jewish refugees were taking away Gentile employment . |
| 23 | ‘ After the Smiths I had been playing the guitar for a few years and I was listening to things like Aztec Camera and Orange Juice . |
| 24 | Officials in Washington had been sounding the warning for over four years , noting that Guatemala is a trans-shipment point for Colombian cocaine and heroin heading north to the United States and Mexico . |
| 25 | Only as the car was crunching softly to a halt in the gravel of the yard did Charlotte ask suddenly , but in a tone so subdued as to suggest that she had been contemplating the question for some time , and refrained from asking it only for fear of the answer : |