Example sentences of "had been [v-ing] a [adj] [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | Mr Butler had been taking a collection-box home when he was attacked on the Tube , kicked in the face , kneed in the stomach , had his head banged against a door and almost strangled . |
| 2 | The other women often talked about young men they knew , and one of them had been taking a young man back to her flat during the evenings . |
| 3 | Kochen maintained that DEC had been taking a worldwide census of ‘ hundreds of customers ’ recently to ascertain whether OSF/1-on-MIPS was a viable policy . |
| 4 | Susan had been taking a few items of clothing from a chest of drawers to a suitcase open on the bed . |
| 5 | He had been serving a 20-year term in Nicosia 's central prison . |
| 6 | Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Berdennikov said on Sept. 14 that the Soviet Union and later Russia had been violating a 1972 treaty banning germ warfare , at least until March 1992 . |
| 7 | I had been swimming a long time that first Sunday , far out in the bay , and he could easily have slipped the things on to the Bourani end of the beach while I was in the water . |
| 8 | It was later compounded by the fall-out from a family explosion : on Roger Ackerley 's death in 1929 the son discovered that , first , his father had been maintaining a separate menage and that , second , the money had run out . |
| 9 | He had been using a great deal of unnecessary and inappropriate tension when reciting . |
| 10 | Their G P Felix Lusman had been using a faulty technique for the past five years . |
| 11 | For this search I teamed up with two young friends , both experienced detector users , who had been searching a nearby farm and thus knew the area well . |
| 12 | Ever since the two disastrous meetings she had had recently about Matilda , the first with the Headmistress and the second with the dreadful Mr and Mrs Wormwood , Miss Honey had been thinking a great deal about this child and wondering how she could help her . |
| 13 | He had been wearing a blue sweatshirt over his T-shirt , which he had taken off after the pub fight broke out . |
| 14 | The girl , who will be seven next month , told the High Court in Glasgow that her grandfather had been wearing a red nose and had been dressed like a clown at the time . |
| 15 | She had been wearing a light cotton shirt with a dark blue skirt . |
| 16 | Husband had been filling a curved briar from a silver pocket box . |
| 17 | I was sure she had been holding a small phial with the letters ‘ SUL ’ written on it . |
| 18 | So , Mavis at least had been getting a good earful . |
| 19 | Meanwhile the warden 's cat , who had been enjoying a light snack in the dustbin , saw Emily , saw the milk , and that is all I can remember , it happened so quickly . |
| 20 | Especially since by then Laura had been earning a great deal of money , and all the past difficulties had more or less been solved . |
| 21 | However , as was pointed out by the Court of Appeal in Coward v Comex Houlder Diving Ltd ( 1988 ) ( reported in Kemp & Kemp , Section M , para27-322 ) the conventional percentage does not necessarily apply where the wife had been earning a considerable sum herself prior to her husband 's death or presumably where she had a substantial private income : see also Davies v Hawes ( 1990 ) reported in Kemp & Kemp , Section M , para27-323 . |
| 22 | At least the Spanish authorities had been conducting a professional search . |
| 23 | She and Implexion had been conducting a casual affair for years ; she knew him better than anyone . |
| 24 | This group had already trekked from Pochala on the Ethiopian border ; some of the boys had been living a transitory existence for four years . |
| 25 | She said she and another officer had been pursuing a red Ford Sierra car on the road between the villages of Hillam and Burton , North Yorkshire , when it suddenly stopped and a gunman got out . |
| 26 | This would not be easy , for beneath the surface of the dictatorship Spanish politics had been undergoing a dramatic transformation . |
| 27 | Maudie had been expecting a better response from her friends , or at the very least a little sympathy , but they seemed not to care . |
| 28 | He had been expecting a great difference , but not the extent of the hostility that had greeted him and the reality of a giant Worm wielding enormous electrical energy . |
| 29 | At this point the young man , who had been reading a folded newspaper , looked up and said in a slightly truculent voice , ‘ Excuse me , madam , but that 's my pudding you 're about to eat . ’ |
| 30 | Giovanna 's husband acquired a long garden cane , which had been supporting a tottering mallow , and with it established the depth . |