Example sentences of "they had [be] [v-ing] [art] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Reading it , the British discovered that they had been speaking the imperial equivalent of prose all their lives . |
| 2 | Since about 1840 they had been expanding the scope of their products to include the whole range of cotton-processing machinery . |
| 3 | ‘ Did you want me , Myra ? ’ she asked as calmly as if they had been discussing the weather and not within an ace of making either love or war . |
| 4 | ‘ They had been discussing the idea that a pet should be for life not just for Christmas and decided to take the idea a step further , ’ she said . |
| 5 | Whilst they had been watching the protesters , a waitress had come out of The Crossed Keys hotel on the corner of the square carrying a tray of interesting-looking glasses . |
| 6 | As the boats began to leave the mouth of the River Tees , where they had been barring the way to Teesport , they claimed their eight-hour show of strength had been a success . |
| 7 | More distressingly , we discovered that the Aru islands and the Greater Bird of Paradise were no longer on their trading routes and that for the last twenty years they had been pursuing the shorter and more profitable triangular passage between Celebes , Java and Borneo . |
| 8 | They had been defending the building for 31 days and there was blood on the floor . |
| 9 | Almost as if they had been awaiting the signal of an extra moon , they now took their prancings into a more intense phase . |
| 10 | They had been crossing a scree ; there had been many loose stones , and footing was difficult , but surely at that point they had been traversing a gentler slope , and her employer had actually been standing on a flattish stretch of granite when she had fallen . |
| 11 | In Arequipa I had watched women in the church of Santo Domingo giggle happily as they dressed the Virgin for a procession ; , behaving much as if they had been preparing a girl for a wedding , not a poor girl though , rather one Velasquez might be called upon to paint . |
| 12 | Students who are entitled to transitional relief will receive ⅕ of the relief they would have received if they had been paying the full community charge . |
| 13 | For nearly a generation they had been resisting the introduction of written inventories of peasant obligations , whose purpose was to prevent noblemen treating serfs in the arbitrary manner to which they were accustomed . |
| 14 | After hearing that they had been attending a high school graduation party , they were released by the judge on the condition that they were each driven to their parents ' home exactly as they appeared in court — with only a blanket for |
| 15 | They had been challenging the sailing colliers for a number of years and the movement of coal was so important that the nautical press carried a daily feature and report on the coal trade . |
| 16 | Even though they were retired , they had been leading a very active life . |
| 17 | At the last , Britain 's ambassador to Constantinople abandoned the encouragement he had been giving the Turks and advised them to go on negotiating , but by this time neither Britain nor France was in a position to withdraw the backing which they had been giving the sultan . |
| 18 | One moment they had been crossing a burning glade of shoulder-high grass in the full glare of the sun and the next they descended abruptly into a dark , silent , mysterious world where the air was cool and moist , the earth soft and spongy underfoot , and dazzling orchids blazed suddenly among the deep green undergrowth . |
| 19 | They had been crossing a scree ; there had been many loose stones , and footing was difficult , but surely at that point they had been traversing a gentler slope , and her employer had actually been standing on a flattish stretch of granite when she had fallen . |
| 20 | Suppose they had been having an affair , and she 'd dropped him ? ’ |
| 21 | She subsequently discovered that they had been having an affair for several months . |
| 22 | Most of the ‘ masters ’ of torture said that they had been fighting a desperate unseen war , whose atmosphere could not be imagined by people from democracies . |
| 23 | Protected from prosecution by an amnesty law of 1978 , the military opposed any such investigation but their claim that they had been fighting a war against left-wing subversion became increasingly untenable with the discovery of mass graves containing the bodies of their political opponents and the disclosure of how they had indulged in corrupt financial practices while in power , including the payment of US$3,000,000 to Pinochet 's son [ see pp. 37528-29 ; 37852-53 ; 37958 ] . |
| 24 | Amiss suspected they had been hammering the port harder than ever the previous night . |
| 25 | They had been delaying a statement of the Secretariat for Unity on religious liberty , which , at this stage , was intended to form part of the schema on ecumenism . |
| 26 | Right up until the coup in nineteen twenty seven they had been following a policy dictated by Moscow , dictated by Stalin which told them form alliances with the Kuomintang , work with the Kuomintang , first of all trust Chiang Kai-shek , then when Chiang Kai-shek turned on them they were told to trust the left Kuomintang leaders who were based in Wo Han in the middle Yangtze valleys , and then they turned on them a policy , in other words , that had proved absolutely disastrous . |