Example sentences of "had been [adj] [to-vb] [adj] [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Unfortunately in past years , due to lack of financial support , it had been impossible to maintain regular contact between the youngsters , she added . |
| 2 | Some dictators had been keen to forge triple alliances including foreign firms ; other had kept them at arms ' length . |
| 3 | Mr Kerfoot said this week that in 1988 one of his oil suppliers on the Rhine had been keen to send raw material to Britain by rail instead of road because of pressure from the German Government . |
| 4 | The details have escaped me , but he and Sir Andrew Clarke , as churchwardens ( their memorial tablets are near to each other in the south transept ) had been obliged to take legal action over the advowson — the word which , because of its precision of meaning and its sound , I could see he enjoyed introducing ; but they had evidently covered themselves in so doing , because , the Anglican Church being established , their office carried official responsibilities . |
| 5 | who hated being photographed or interviewed , had been obliged to entertain important people : pension-fund managers , stockbrokers , bankers , and financial journalists . |
| 6 | At that moment it had been appropriate to put big pickets you know I think if we thought too much about it we would have and taken it to the lodge and put it through the union it would have had cold water put over it and you know it was right for Tom to be wary and it was probably right for us to do what we did I mean I think you know it it was successful the way it turned out . |
| 7 | With Tony it had been easy to make facile decisions about ‘ waiting for marriage ’ . |
| 8 | Franco had been grateful to receive Italian planes in July and August , but he was not happy with the massive despatch of foot-soldiers , partly because Mussolini had the temerity to send more than had been agreed , and partly because the Duce insisted that they were not deployed as part of the Spanish Army , but formed an independent corps , with their own officers . |
| 9 | Jacobitism 's main base was in the north-east lowlands , an area where it had been difficult to insert Presbyterian ministers after the Glorious Revolution , and where Stuart loyalism continued to be nurtured by an active episcopalian clergy . |
| 10 | She would just about do , although she wished she had been able to wear high heels . |
| 11 | Music , both light and heavy , had been able to use new technology to improve the balance . |
| 12 | By 1956 , for instance , it had been able to overcome discriminatory practices in transportation rates and costs . |
| 13 | Once upon a time , she had been able to withstand Florentine summers better than any English woman she knew but of late they had begun to tire her , to make her feel that in everything she did she was pushing a large boulder up a hill . |
| 14 | A report published in April by the New York-based Carnegie Endowment for Peace claimed that Argentina , Brazil , India , Iraq and Pakistan had been able to circumvent international regulations and build or expand nuclear weapons capabilities . |
| 15 | Between 1971 and 1981 , 15 companies had been able to transfer untaxed funds to the CDU ( and to the Free Democratic Party ( FDP ) and the Christian Social Union ( CSU ) ) via a Cologne-based foundation . |
| 16 | François de Callières , the French diplomat who wrote in the 1690s the best-known diplomatic manual of the period , pointed out that the cities of Bologna and Ferrara , now incorporated in the papal state , still sent " diplomatic deputations " to the pope and that in Spanish-ruled Sicily Messina , until the rising of 1674 there , had been able to send similar deputations to Madrid ; but he rightly saw these as unimportant hangovers from the past . |
| 17 | Soviet leaders had been prepared to consider international arrangements and guarantees only on the external aspects of the Afghan problem . |
| 18 | The SLORC regime had been eager to attract foreign investment ; this was thought to have been the major factor in its decision to proceed with the election . |
| 19 | Foreign diplomats said the lack of a further reshuffle after a meeting of the central advisory commission meant Deng had been unable to persuade other party elders to retire to smooth the transfer of power to his heir . |
| 20 | Most participants in special programmes simultaneously answered that they were in temporary jobs because they had been unable to find permanent work ; a small proportion , consisting mainly of YTS participants , saw their places on the scheme as jobs which were temporary because they involved a contract for training . |
| 21 | With the aid of the LFS we were able to examine further the extent to which members of the temporary labour force in the hotel and catering industry were working on that basis because they had been unable to find permanent jobs , and to what extent they were doing so because they did not want permanent jobs . |
| 22 | It is clear that the Mercians under Aethelred had been unable to assert Mercian authority in Kent in the confused circumstances of these years and the limits to Mercian power in this area had been strikingly reaffirmed . |