Example sentences of "[noun pl] had been [v-ing] [adv prt] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Crimean Tatars had been drifting back to their former homeland since 1987 , and a June 1988 central government ruling confirmed their right to residency [ see p. 36036 ] . |
| 2 | He said the Iranians had been carrying out assassinations , including that of his own Japanese translator . |
| 3 | Her admirer had already been bound over to keep the peace after being arrested on her doorstep , and his unwelcome attentions had been going on for over six years . |
| 4 | The stomach cramps had been coming back , off and on , all day , but so far she had been able to keep them under control . |
| 5 | Their shells had been passing over our positions from time to time all day , with a loud rush that sometimes appeared to shake the trees . |
| 6 | The man with the corkscrew curls had been hanging round , listening and staring at Thomas Clarkson . |
| 7 | For many years our shore-based rummage crews had been picking up increasing quantities of drugs from routine searches of merchant vessels within the ports , but often these smuggling attempts were " one off " jobs by crew members . |
| 8 | The signal is dated 1 August 1942 and states that a stream of messages had been coming in from Stirling in the desert regarding the shipment of supplies by Bombays for delivery on 4 August . |
| 9 | I tried all the channels from 1 to 40 in case the hijackers had been messing about with the rig in the truck , but still got nothing . |
| 10 | Troubles had been piling up in recent months as the owners struggled to restore the house 's reputation . |
| 11 | At the other end of the building some very different experiments had been going on involving nuclear physicists who knew of the existence but few of the details of ZETA . |
| 12 | When questioned they admitted that this state of affairs had been going on for some time . |
| 13 | The Carlists had been building up the paramilitary Requeté since the early days of the Republic and seriously preparing for a rising since 1934 . |
| 14 | Basically er the broad overall description would be to compensate for the conditions that the tenants had been living in prior to the move . |
| 15 | Things had been ticking along nicely between them , just as long as she 'd been prepared to forget that she wanted more out of the relationship than a roll in the hay and a bright ‘ cheerio ’ at the airport . |
| 16 | The streets may not have been nearly so safe as nostalgia for ‘ Old England ’ suggests , but it is likely that if working-class youths had been firing off guns throughout London , then we would have heard a little bit more about the matter . |
| 17 | When the accused entered the room , he had appreciated that something had or was taking place because the youths had been leaning over his fiancee . |
| 18 | The pupils had been going on at me about ‘ You 're always picking on me ’ ' and then finally the boy said to him that he was picking on him because he was black and he said ‘ That just triggered it off ’ . |
| 19 | Screams rang out from the galleries , where spectators had been gazing down instead of hiding . |
| 20 | Negotiations had been going on for 17 months before the strike . |
| 21 | A National Grid spokesman yesterday confirmed negotiations had been going on with landowners but he said it was perfectly normal procedure . |
| 22 | Since early February oyster-catchers had been arriving back from spending the winter around the big estuaries of mainland Britain and by the end of March were well distributed in coastal areas . |
| 23 | * Prior to the report 's publication , US environmental groups had been stepping up their attack on GATT [ see ED 55 ] . |
| 24 | Overhead the clouds had been breaking up for some time . |
| 25 | He told her he and Mallachy had got involved ‘ through Mallachy 's big mouth ’ in a late-club row up the Malone Road where some students had been blowing off their mouths over politics and religion , and it had almost come to blows . |
| 26 | His feelings were heightened , but his drives had been running down . |
| 27 | ‘ In the end I could n't bear to be anywhere else , ’ she said , and added that if such practices had been going on in the islands as were alleged , everyone would have known about them . |
| 28 | The raids had been going on for months , but had become increasingly violent : by mid-May they involved border posts being strafed with bullets or set on fire . |
| 29 | Magistrates heard that employees had been hosing out residue from used drums — using a high pressure jet — in a defined ‘ washing area ’ . |
| 30 | A wider political initiative , with UN armed observers escorting food and convoys , and increased financial output , was not launched until as late as August , by which time looting of food supplies had been going on for some months . |