Example sentences of "it [vb past] been [adj] [to-vb] [prep] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | It had been impossible to think of the future since John 's abduction , but 17 April was only weeks away and I had been discussing with Chris and Nick how we might mark it in some way . |
| 2 | It had been easy to agree to Sniffy 's request from the safety of the office but it felt different to be taking the orders of a stranger from Sniffy 's brutal underworld . |
| 3 | I wondered if she still felt that it had been worthwhile to appear in the film . |
| 4 | He did n't tell her that he had been so worried about her that it had been hard to concentrate on sharing the hurt with Marcus , on blocking out the punishment–hey put him through . |
| 5 | It said it had been unable to establish with sufficient certainty which of the inconsistent statements made by Mr Clark was not true . |
| 6 | His voice was harsh and nasal , as if it had had to fight a stiff battle around the bridge of his nose before it had been able to emerge at all . |
| 7 | China itself was riven with rebellion , and the ruling Qing dynasty was in decline , unable to withstand the depredations of Western traders and governments or to give the leadership it had been able to offer in former times . |
| 8 | On stormy nights it had been exhilarating to fly in the teeth of the wind . |
| 9 | Faced with a deepening penal crisis on the one hand , and continuing intransigence from sentencers on the other , there was growing pressure throughout the 1990s from a broad constituency — comprising not only penal reformers but also senior civil servants , prison visitors , and prison governors — for the government to accept the need for more effective techniques for the control of sentencing discretion than it had been prepared to concede in the past . |