Example sentences of "[prep] [noun] had be [v-ing] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Pressures for change had been building up within the legislature for some time and these were to be given added impetus by the events surrounding the resignation of President Nixon . |
| 2 | The result was the abolition in February 1844 of the Secret Office which for generations had been intercepting letters of possible interest to the government . |
| 3 | For many months virtually everywhere in the Soviet Union stocks in state shops of even basic foodstuffs such as bread had been growing increasingly erratic , although some of the blame for this lay in the withholding of deliveries to the state supply network by farms and local authorities , in anticipation of prices rising or to meet local needs [ for indications of breakdown in the distribution system in May see p. 37538 ] . |
| 4 | Thus when there was demand for training youth in drama the holder of the purse , the government , turned for advice not to educationalists , not to speech and drama experts ( although there was some overlap here ) , but to a small group of charismatic figures who for decades had been promoting community drama of one sort or another , promoting it by giving advice , by running courses , by setting up drama libraries of play-texts , by making links with professional theatre , by popularising competitive festivals . |
| 5 | Timid winds of change had been trying to blow in Spanish universities since 1951 , when a relatively progressive Minister of Education , Joaquin Ruiz-Giménez , had initiated an attempt to revitalize and open up the torpid and reactionary Spanish education system . |
| 6 | The power of Chaos had been growing for some years . |
| 7 | I can certainly agree with my hon. Friend — that incident was most regrettable , particularly in light of the fact that the human rights record of Indonesia had been improving in recent years . |
| 8 | Dr Horn 's assessment is that by the 1790s the southern farm labourer 's standard of living had been falling for thirty years , and that an increase of around 85 per cent in money wages over the war years kept it just about level up to 1815 . |
| 9 | It was reported on Feb. 17 that workers in over 20 enterprises in the port of Galati had been striking against the state of negotiations on the national labour agreement . |
| 10 | For about four centuries the rulers of England had been trying to conquer and rule France , Scotland , and Ireland , but they had just lost their last foothold in France at Calais , their position in Ireland was as insecure as it had ever been , and the Scottish problem had taken an altogether new turn because Mary the Queen of Scotland could present a good claim to the English throne . |
| 11 | Subjects of the King of England had been doing this in Ireland ever since Strongbow 's invasion in 1169 . |
| 12 | But what is equally incredible is that the inhabitants of Seascale had been suffering from the Windscale piles for several years before the fire . |
| 13 | The HDZ government of Croatia had been building its own army : it had 35,000 police units of which 25,000 were in the reserves and 10,000 belong to special units . |
| 14 | The signal is dated 1 August 1942 and states that a stream of messages had been coming in from Stirling in the desert regarding the shipment of supplies by Bombays for delivery on 4 August . |
| 15 | Mike noticed a group of heavy gamblers , most of them Greek , move towards the baccarat room , where the Sultan of Rupolei had been losing for the last hour . |
| 16 | When questioned they admitted that this state of affairs had been going on for some time . |
| 17 | This came about partly from the cessation of publication of 6-inch maps in 1881 as all of the staff effort had been concentrated on trying to complete the Survey of the country and partly because the number of staff had been decreasing . |
| 18 | Ahead of the opening of a new Supreme Soviet session on Sept. 10 a working group of ministers and experts set up at the end of August had been attempting to synthesise two sets of proposals [ see p. 37663 ] . |
| 19 | She got a , I think she got a bit of a shock you know she actually probably thought she was better than she was and a lot of people had been giving her a lot of pats on the back and I tell you where half of that emanated from was down the corridor . |
| 20 | A couple of scientists had been working on Edgeøya for most of the summer , and this young bear had appeared near the old trapper 's hut they were staying in ( which was near the beach where we had landed ) . |
| 21 | Meanwhile , from the direction of the psychoanalysts and the nursery educationalists , another school of thought had been arising . |
| 22 | Cecil explained that Pursuit of Love had been working at home with Desert Sun and the recent Newbury winner Rudimentary . |
| 23 | The tin-mining towns of Camborne and Redruth on the north coast of Cornwall had been facing major redundancies since the 1985 plunge in tin prices . |
| 24 | ‘ It 's Fergie , ’ someone said , and within seconds Charles and Diana were left staring at an empty patch of snow where a moment before dozens of photographers had been elbowing one another for the best position . |
| 25 | We discovered later that a crowd of drop-outs had been living rough on the Towers , using local fishing boats to ferry them to and fro . |
| 26 | A big hunk of pork had been hanging — in a wagon tipped up on its side |
| 27 | Walter Stocker , the head of the Red Cross team trying to deal with the refugee crisis in the central African state , said hordes of peasants had been trekking south since guerrillas of the Rwanda Patriotic Front broke a seven-month ceasefire and attacked army positions on 8 February . |
| 28 | Groups of men had been working ceaselessly since the battle to tear them down and salvage what they could of their contents . |
| 29 | Michael Jones of the Department of History had been doing research on these buildings for several years and with his colleague , Gwyn Meirion Jones of the City of London Polytechnic they tackled the challenge with alacrity . |
| 30 | Only very gradually did a small number of educated critics come to see that although quite different from the Russian and European film the Hollywood and Hollywood-inspired film had developed its own qualities and that the great mass audience for that kind of entertainment had been responding quite genuinely to positive influence . |