Example sentences of "[noun sg] [vb past] been [adj] [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | He had been employed before 1917 in the archives of the foreign ministry and one of his ancestors on his mother 's side had been Russian ambassador in Vienna during the 1814 – 15 congress . |
| 2 | Her presence and her loss had been equal disasters . |
| 3 | Churchill , Eden , Macmillan , and Home had been political grandees ; all emerged through the ‘ magic circle , and not as a result of election by MPs . |
| 4 | STAFF TRAINING The details have yet to be revealed but Mr Pearson said the council had been encouraging firms to train their staff since 1983 . |
| 5 | Her last post had been General Secretary to the Association of Headmistresses . |
| 6 | While the ebb and flow to this point had been absorbing stuff , the ensuing capitulation was nothing short of astonishing , far more dramatic and conclusive than that suffered by England two years ago ; but still never totally unexpected on a pitch showing wear and uneven bounce in equal measure . |
| 7 | Defying the need to slump her head dejectedly on to her arms , to howl long and hard that every minute of this evening had been utter hell and that all she wanted now was to curl up safe and warm in her own bed . |
| 8 | Literature — above all fiction — has never been a notably gentlemanly profession in Britain , as Dickens and H. G. Wells illustrate ; and the Bloomsbury group had been upper middle-class rather than aristocratic . |
| 9 | He had missed his church very much indeed , but our Vicar and the Curate had been constant visitors , and we were both of us upheld by the knowledge of their prayers and of many friends at St Peter 's . |
| 10 | Pablo Merry del Val , whose father had been Spanish Ambassador in London , conducted briefings for the correspondents and censored their dispatches . |
| 11 | I had seen him on a number of occasions during my childhood in Abyssinia where my father had been British Minister at Addis Ababa , but this was the first time I spoke to him . |
| 12 | His father had been busy writing about shore larks . |
| 13 | This division of the tribes cut across their earlier affiliations and origins since most of those on both sides of the Thames Estuary had been Gallo-Belgic migrants crossing the Channel and settling in these areas , mainly as a consequence of Caesar 's advance into Gaul in 39 BC and possibly earlier . |
| 14 | For several decades Britain 's policy had been splendid isolation , and that Europe 's most powerful nation should emerge from that isolation by concluding an alliance with Japan was seen in Japan as a triumph . |
| 15 | In large areas of Britain the results of the Thatcher government had been mass unemployment , collapsing public services , and urban decay . |
| 16 | Suddenly I was aware that all my actions since the attack had been aimless distractions — action for the sake of action . |
| 17 | Forty perished and three years later the Scottish Parliament voted that the killing had been unlawful murder . |
| 18 | Azerbaijan accused Armenian forces of shooting down the helicopter , while Armenia claimed that the cause had been poor weather . |
| 19 | If the judges in Elmer 's case had been strict conventionalists they would have decided that case in two stages . |
| 20 | The response had been massive strikes in the public sector . |
| 21 | The typical known user had been smoking heroin daily for about one to three years , having started the habit around the age of 16–18 , and was using 0.25–0.5 gram of heroin per day ( costing between 20 and 35 ) at the time of agency contact . |
| 22 | The gang had been intimidating passengers and had attacked the driver and a woman guard . |
| 23 | The average holiday cost £370 a week and nine out of 10 thought their holiday had been good value . |
| 24 | Stirling nevertheless felt that the trip had been English saboteurs , Maclean demanded . |
| 25 | After so long thinking that the reason for our kidnap had been bad feeling between Britain and Iran , and knowing that , before the Rushdie affair at least , fences had been mended , it was hard to believe now that it had all been a mirage . |
| 26 | The defining elements of Pilkingtons ' management culture had been technical excellence and centralism . |
| 27 | The floors of the sheds in the quarry had been bare boards or stamped earth . |
| 28 | A negotiated solution to the trade dispute with Nepal , the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force ( IPKF ) in Sri Lanka [ for which see p. 37316 ] and a political solution for the Tamil areas of that country had been primary objectives outlined in the National Front 's election manifesto . |
| 29 | But Webb 's strict ethical judgement that , once the couple had been pronounced man and wife , Benjamin was not entitled to put them asunder , disregards the fact that Benjamin has rescued Elaine from a loveless marriage before it is consummated . |
| 30 | When a younger and less sophisticated Hank had come quietly through the back gate in search of the garage , the couple had been busy planting a lilac tree . |