Example sentences of "he [vb past] be [v-ing] to " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | It was just as well Kenneth 's phone was n't engaged because , presumably , if he 'd been chatting to John Major about the situation in the Middle East , or talking to David Mellor about fun , poor old Johan would have been chucked out of the country . |
| 2 | And he 'd known it , all the time he 'd been trying to bed her . |
| 3 | But after that Pete had sworn that he 'd touch nothing stronger than tapwater for the rest of the evening , and so far he 'd been sticking to it . |
| 4 | She 'd thought at the time — fleetingly , without really dwelling on it — that he 'd been referring to Arnie with these remarks . |
| 5 | Perhaps he 'd been referring to someone else as well ? |
| 6 | The publican replied that he 'd been talking to his dog . |
| 7 | Leaving whoever it was he 'd been talking to , he started towards her . |
| 8 | For a long moment their glances clashed like swords , then there was a shout behind her , and she turned to see the two men he 'd been talking to and a short stout woman in a dark overall running towards them . |
| 9 | I did a double-take before I realized he 'd been talking to me . |
| 10 | Of course , he 'd been talking to Maria Luisa ; he had nothing to say to Steve . |
| 11 | He 'd been talking to these erm Greek blokes and they invited him into this bar for erm |
| 12 | Jesus had been , with his disciples and he had spent the whole day in teaching and preaching to the people , he 'd been explaining to them what the kingdom of God was like , he 'd been telling them some of the parables that perhaps we 're familiar with , he 'd been telling them about the parable of the sewer and the seed , the man who went out and he sewed his seed and different things went wrong birds came and picked up the stuff that fell by the wayside , some fell on stony ground and it could n't put down any roots , some fell amongst thorns and they were quickly choked , but some did fall in good prepared soil and that grew . |
| 13 | And he was glad to have an excuse to put off telling her the news that he 'd been keeping to himself . |
| 14 | An environmental activist prior to his appointment in 1990 [ see p. 37312 ] , Lutzemberger had been outspoken in his criticism of Brazilian institutions which he believed were contributing to environmental destruction , particularly that of the Amazon rainforest . |
| 15 | at all , no sense of dedication , because the job which he knew was going to be his , before he met the this Simpson . |
| 16 | 11.57 / 3 Now some of the trees he planted are coming to the end of their natural life and the present Duke of Marlborough has begun a restoration programme to replace them and keep the landscape gardens they were originally laid-out . |
| 17 | And yet in the same lecture he had expressed his belief that the tradition of which he spoke was drawing to a close ; and , in the poem , the encounter with the familiar but only half-glimpsed figure is charged with a sense of transitoriness and loss : |
| 18 | ‘ Sure I would , ’ and her brother turned on the Sunday game he had been listening to when Moran entered the yard . |
| 19 | George Underwood : ‘ It was all instigated by David really , because he had been listening to the World Service on the radio and suddenly got the bug to get involved in American Football , and he wrote to the American Embassy asking for more information . |
| 20 | So he has got the scrum right , just as if he had been listening to Graham Price all along . |
| 21 | He spun the radio tuner at random , to leave no evidence for prying eyes that he had been listening to a foreign station . |
| 22 | I think he had been listening to some people in the dale who had missed out on the shoot and the money that went with it , and were critical , or pretended to be critical , of people who worked for Sir Emmanuel and the other toffs — maybe a bit left wing , although Stanley was n't a person who took any interest in politics . |
| 23 | Obviously he had been listening to the battle . |
| 24 | His comment also meant that he had been listening to her conversation with the receptionist in Dublin — because he had still been bored ? |
| 25 | But the Chancellor did show he had been listening to some of industry 's gripes . |
| 26 | But in his heart he knew that he had been speaking to a troubled spirit , a spirit that had something terrible to confess . |
| 27 | If you read a few er , verses , a chapter or so earlier on , he had been speaking to one man to a er er a high official from Ethiopia , and he had been sharing with him from Isaiah chapter fifty three , the message of Jesus Christ . |
| 28 | Then , in the same gentle tone she had heard Travis use when he had been speaking to the woman he loved , he murmured , ‘ Leith , my darling , I just ca n't keep it to myself any longer — do you mind ? ’ |
| 29 | The officer 's life was ‘ almost certainly ’ saved by the fact that one bullet became embedded in a radio handset he had been holding to his ear . |
| 30 | Climbing to his feet , the tall sheriff pocketed the small hand-mirror he had been holding to Grant 's lips . |