Example sentences of "[prep] the [noun] had be [v-ing] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Teachers , with a professional nose for the job had been handling a range of social issues , especially under the general heading of PSE ( Personal and Social Education ) . |
| 2 | The three local women that she 'd brought in as help for the evening had been buzzing around behind her , greasing dishes and setting up trays and napkin-wrapping cutlery . |
| 3 | Yet at the time the report was released , the actual company that was used as the basis for the research had been trading for five months and is coping well with a difficult launch period and providing to be highly successful in meeting its targets . |
| 4 | Another one has taken a quick look and walked away : Motorola Inc chairman George Fisher said the chief executive position at IBM Corp did not interest him : he wrote to employees saying that speculation about the post had been building in the news media and that his name had been mentioned — ‘ though IBM is a fine company , I am not interested in the position ; I plan to stay at Motorola where my work is challenging , exciting and rewarding . ’ |
| 5 | Some members of the crew had been sitting in the bows and it was only when they denied having seen her that he began to search seriously . |
| 6 | Politicians and political parties for some months prior to the announcement of the date of the election had been making their arrangements for manifestoes and candidates . |
| 7 | It overlooked the street , it was too hot , and the people on the other side of the wall had been watching the hotel 's cable channel late and loud so that he 'd had to go around and hammer on their door . |
| 8 | Some of the refugees had been living in Polish exile for as long as seven weeks , while others arrived only a few hours before West German diplomats announced they could leave . |
| 9 | Some of the girls had been looking forward to this as to the highlight of the trip , but Clara had been dreading it , and for a classic reason , which was that she had nothing nice to wear . |
| 10 | Meanwhile however , the rest of the Hurricanes had been suffering badly at the hands of the German fighters . |
| 11 | This group had already trekked from Pochala on the Ethiopian border ; some of the boys had been living a transitory existence for four years . |
| 12 | Business had been good in the few weeks she had been in charge , but she was astute enough to realise that many of the customers had been coming to the club simply to see her . |
| 13 | He went out of the gate , wondering what the rest of the unit had been doing . |
| 14 | It happened that the king of the vookodlaks had been hiding behind a tree , listening while the sun-god talked to the boys . |
| 15 | From the times of the original Glasgow Harbour at the Broomielaw in the 1660s , the atmosphere of the Clydeside had been acquiring something of the West Indies , the South China Sea , the coasts of Africa and India , and all the magic , terror and richness of the seven seas of the world . |
| 16 | But he strenuously denied that anything of the sort had been going on anywhere in Europe around the time of the Lockerbie disaster . |
| 17 | The current phase of the debate had been developing since January 1992 when the country 's veteran leader , Deng Xiaoping , had used a tour of the special enterprise zones in southern China as an opportunity to praise the free market as a key mechanism of economic growth [ see p. 38722 ] . |
| 18 | England was finally forced to look at what the rest of the world had been doing with the game . |
| 19 | Unionists had less compunction than Liberals in employing compulsion for desirable ends , and the Milnerite wing of the party had been preaching the gospel of " national efficiency " through organization , making a positive virtue of compulsion . |
| 20 | Staff and customers comforted each other as police cleared items from the scene ; the cartridges that had been fired , and the pushchair that one of the children had been using . |
| 21 | Neither he nor his partner was asked about family backgrounds , possible problems , or whether any of the children had been presenting any unusual symptoms . |
| 22 | Smith said that some of the reporters had been drinking before getting down to the job of covering the fight ; Hearn is considering litigation . |
| 23 | ‘ Some of the lads had been feeling it and this gave them the chance to pay some of the bills that had been piling up . |
| 24 | One of the guests had been talking about him . |
| 25 | of the people had been smoking at the meeting . |
| 26 | About half of the patients had been waiting for their notes for less than six weeks , but 19 had been waiting for over six months , 14 for over a year , and six for over two years . |
| 27 | Most of the wickets had been falling |
| 28 | Six of the escapers had been facing death sentences . |
| 29 | Some of the men had been collecting driftwood and dry sticks and branches from among the trees ; a small fire was coming to life , crackling and spluttering sparks into the haze of heat above it . |
| 30 | By then , some of the crowd had been waiting for 5 or 6 hours and many were becoming restive . |