Example sentences of "[noun sg] had [been] a " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | Over the years her religion had been a great comfort to her . |
| 2 | He contacted E. D. Morel , whose Congo Association had been a model of effective agitation ; Normal Angell , the best known public advocate of pacifism ; and Ramsay MacDonald , who had resigned the leadership of the Labour party when it agreed to vote for the war credits . |
| 3 | The social scientist charged with monitoring and evaluating the project ( Goodman 1979 ) refused to answer the question as to whether or not the experiment had been a success , asserting that this was the wrong question . |
| 4 | Simone de Beauvoir was convinced that Nizan 's confrontation with the reality of the Soviet experiment had been a profoundly disorientating experience for him : " Nizan was deeply disturbed to discover that out there , as here , everyone died alone and knew it " , she noted . |
| 5 | Football had been a traditionally rowdy and sometimes violent game , but as a regulated spectator sport it provided novel opportunities for conflicts between the players , referees and fans , and there is a well documented history of pitch invasions , attacks on referees and players , and fighting between rival fans throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century and into the new century . |
| 6 | The boys talked nostalgically about the way fighting had been a part of their fathers ' world ; ‘ about the time old man MacIlroy , half-pissed , had taken on ali the men folk of his very extended family , at his sister 's wedding , and stili had time to call for more beer . |
| 7 | The defendant had been a director of plaintiffs for 13 years and had been in charge of the development and sales of a certain type of heater . |
| 8 | It was normal to tear the shawl first so that its value would not tempt a profane person to violate the tomb ; but the shawl had been a beautiful one and he had not been able to bring himself to do that . |
| 9 | As far as she was concerned , the tea had been a success . |
| 10 | In ‘ The Decline of the English Murder ’ he argued that whereas in the past murder had been a serious business involving strong personal commitments and emotions , it had now become an almost casual affair informed by ‘ the anonymous life of dance-halls and the false values of the American film ’ . |
| 11 | The murder had been a particularly horrible one , and no one felt sympathetic towards the murderer . |
| 12 | The result had been a succession of balance of payments crises , deflationary countermeasures at home , and consequent interruptions to economic growth . |
| 13 | Buying that blank tape had been a waste , for she knew she would never dare play it back . |
| 14 | THE OPENING ceremony had been a great success . |
| 15 | Her engagement had been a bitter mistake , but it had at least taught her a lesson in preserving her invulnerability , instead of charging into things with unbridled optimism . |
| 16 | The interview had been a mess . |
| 17 | The intention had been a fairly short , impressive strike which ended on a note of strength and with the obvious ability to resume at a later date should the government drag its feet on terrorism and law and order . |
| 18 | Marriage Guidance had been a bloke called Kevin who , in Henry 's view , had had designs on Elinor . |
| 19 | In my experience , the marriage bed was uncomfortable , even distasteful , and invariably boring , whereas sex with my lover had been a revelation . |
| 20 | The eyes of the man in the doorway had been a reawakening for Sara . |
| 21 | His abduction had been a blow to their attempts to show that they were bringing Lebanon to order . |
| 22 | The Public Enemy had been a Warner Bros film and that studio soon went on to consolidate its reputation as one specializing in contemporary themes by releasing I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang . |
| 23 | The labour had been a nightmare . |
| 24 | Their most obvious effect had been a massive increase in speculation as more capitalists tried to make money by wheeling and dealing rather than by productive investment : hence the huge foreign exchange dealings and the booms in share prices , gold , land , real estate and commodities . |
| 25 | The judge rejected suggestions that the riot had been a protest against conditions in the Victorian jail . |
| 26 | The pardon had been a central demand of previous Army mutinies , and the prospect of its being announced was thought to have encouraged the loyalty of the Army in putting down the Dec. 3 carapintadas rebellion . |
| 27 | In retrospect he said that he felt that the review had been a good thing for the department . |
| 28 | One scholar writes that whereas before 1861 " a Russian serf had been a legal nullity " , afterwards he received " entirely new legal entitlements and obligations extending into every basic transaction of everyday life " , with the result that the government had to redesign the empire 's judicial system in order to integrate the peasantry into the community at large . |
| 29 | The explosive had been a two-ounce wafer of Semtex , composed of 45 per cent Penta Tetro Ether Nitrate ( or PETN ) , 45 per cent RDX and 10 per cent plasticizer . |
| 30 | Buried within the plastic explosive had been a miniature detonator , or minidet , later extracted from within a fragment of vertebra that had been itself buried in the spleen . |