Example sentences of "it [verb] take him " in BNC.

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1 It has taken him just five and a half years to make his mark in the big time .
2 It has taken him all these years to understand the implications .
3 The laibon wants it understood that it has taken him some time to trace the trouble back to this incident .
4 SIR Edward du Cann has been walking a financial tightrope for so long that the only surprise is that it has taken him so long finally to fall off .
5 It seemed to take him an age to remember .
6 Sadler , however , although being keen to identify and chart the existence of air currents , had to be content to place his trust in the wind and fly wherever it chose to take him .
7 Asked why it had taken him 26 years to return , he said : ‘ I was n't invited till last year — though if I had been before perestroika , I would have thought not twice but 10 times about it , and I 'm not sure I would have come . ’
8 He was deathly pale and obviously still in the first shock of grief but it had taken him differently .
9 Mungo had been so unnerved by the feather and the peculiar note that it had taken him several moments to decide on the next move ; not the next major move in his life , but literally the act of moving an arm or a leg .
10 He said he was sorry , but it had taken him 10 days to walk here . ’
11 Petiver also bequeathed his own collection to Sloane and it had taken him many years to bring all this material into an orderly array .
12 John , one of the PPLs at our flying club , had made a beautiful job of building his little Jodel and I had followed his progress closely over the several years it had taken him to complete it .
13 Left under-equipped by the Martini , it had taken him too long to realise that copper vats were not now to be had ; that all the pottery stores had somehow been requisitioned ; that skilled men had been seduced away to serve elsewhere .
14 Why it had taken him all day to travel thirty odd miles was not explained .
15 He made me a desk with a roll-top and secret drawers and a matching leather stool ; a huge Tudor doll 's house with leaded windows and roses round the door , filled with hand-carved furniture ; a bow-windowed shop with a sign saying ‘ Lynne 's Store ’ and shelves stocked with dozens of tiny tins of Heinz products — it had taken him a year to cut out all the miniature Heinz logos from magazine adverts , which he had stuck to one-inch lengths of silver-painted dowelling .
16 It had taken him only a few moments to discover , from his wife 's tirade , that Hank 's book was not quite so innocent as he had imagined ; however , any book that made so much money was a good book , in his opinion , and he had defended Hank hotly .
17 When asked why it had taken him so long to change his view of IBM , Joseph Payne at Alex Brown & Sons said abruptly that he had to take another call and promised to call back later .
18 It had taken him only half-an-hour to reach the heralded target figure , and it was poetic justice that Graham Gooch was his partner at the time .
19 I was amazed it had taken him so long .
20 First he reminded us that it had taken him no time at all to find the Ardakkean thief — an off-world technician working in one of the phetam refining plants .
21 It had taken him a long time to adjust himself to this , but now it no longer irritated him , and he felt only pity for his wife .
22 It had taken him and the woman two hundred days — as they measured them — to work out and play the game .
23 It had taken him half an hour to get his hands and nails clean , using white spirit and a nailbrush as well as soap and water .
24 How was it that it had taken him so long to see Parry 's daughter thus clearly ?
25 He had looked at one , years ago , but it had taken him three days to read it , carefully , from cover to cover , by which time he realized that , if he was going to do the thing at all conscientiously , he would never be abreast of current developments .
26 ‘ No telephone calls accepted for residents — ’ I wondered how long it had taken him to break the habit of saying ‘ inmates ’ — ‘ during luncheon . ’
27 It had taken him two days to get a seat on the Paris Express from Madrid .
28 No one else was sure if they agreed , but they did know it had taken him nearly half an hour to get through , and the conversation had been brief .
29 Ken Stevens loved both his girls and Rachel knew it had taken him a long time to come to terms with Jennifer 's illness ; she doubted he would ever forgive David Markham for walking out on her at such a crucial time .
30 But if it 's taken him 28 years to rediscover the show , the character 's never left him : ‘ All that Cockney toughness is just a cover for the inability to love , ’ he says of Littlechap , but it could as easily apply to him ( 'I 'm desperately childish .
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