Example sentences of "[vb past] [pron] had been [v-ing] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | ‘ I realised I had been watching them for 15 minutes . |
| 2 | Later in that passage he wrote : ‘ It was n't until thirty years later when I saw her in another woman [ Elizabeth Taylor ] that I realised I had been searching for her all my life . ’ |
| 3 | He was irritated by a piece of smut on her cheek and started to wipe it off , and then pretended he had been stroking her , because he saw her distress at an emotion that she had guessed with her usual impossible correctness . |
| 4 | When it broke daylight the next morning he found he had been fishing on a sandbar which shallowed up twenty yards out . |
| 5 | He found he had been speaking the memory out into the night and among the bleak cages around . |
| 6 | When they had left the cinema , they found it had been raining so Yanto decided the standing position would be favourite . |
| 7 | ‘ Labour members saw the letter I had sent and automatically assumed I had been misusing the Commons franking machine . |
| 8 | In some odd way he was not a stranger because his name was painfully familiar and she imagined she had been expecting this angry arrival since her accident — that must be the cause of this feeling that was swimming through her . |
| 9 | All that those LA police offices had to say to get acquitted of beating Rodney King was that they believed he had been using PCP . |
| 10 | He killed 19-year-old Walter Smith because he believed he had been mistreating his childhood friend Sharon . |
| 11 | At least one assumed he had been watching the sky , there being little else to view from his small window other than roof-tiles and guttering . |
| 12 | She sat up and rubbed her eyes , colouring furiously as she realised she had been using Roman 's shoulder for a head-rest . |
| 13 | Her broken optic shifted painfully , and she realized she had been seeing out of her empty left eyesocket . |
| 14 | She claimed she had been having a passionate affair with Mary Jo 's husband Joey , 36 . |
| 15 | The sergeant saw her eyes were dim with sadness and he guessed she had been thinking about her former husband . |
| 16 | This reminds me of the story about the old lady who boasted she had been wearing the same pair of stockings for twenty years — one year she knitted new feet on them and the next new legs ! |
| 17 | When he did not return for quite a while , she guessed they had been talking to each other about her . |
| 18 | He looked tired and travel-weary and his first words confirmed he had been riding hard . |
| 19 | He then stopped himself in mid-sentence and claimed he had been joking . |
| 20 | The man claimed he had been looking for his girlfriend when challenged by staff members . |
| 21 | He claimed he had been glue-sniffing which made him sexually aroused . |
| 22 | Rob made me a cup of coffee and erm I forgot it had been standing there and er I went to take a mouthful course I got a mouth full of skin did n't I ? |
| 23 | Jobless Mohammed Aylaus , of Surbiton , Surrey , nabbed after The People handed evidence to police , threatened to shoot a prostitute and her children when he discovered she had been witholding money from him , Reading Crown Court was told . |
| 24 | Six months before her overdose Liz terminated the relationship with her boyfriend of two years ' standing after she discovered he had been going out with another girl . |
| 25 | As soon as the five psychiatrists heard he had been lying , they changed their diagnosis — and were prepared to say he had never suffered mental illness . |
| 26 | He realised they had been watching for some minutes before he noticed them . |
| 27 | I thought , I thought someone had been smoking in the toilets . |
| 28 | Yet he knew I had been taking the Pill every day . ’ |
| 29 | My family thought I had been studying too hard . |
| 30 | When I asked why this was so she explained that since her husband died she had been managing well and felt that she had coped with all the trauma . |