Example sentences of "they were [v-ing] [conj] [verb] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Many people had to leave their homes in the clothes they were wearing and had lost everything . |
| 2 | Instead , they could have stayed on the side they were flying and made a right , instead of a left circuit , with height to spare . |
| 3 | Alex , from his position in the wings , was not concentrating as much and could not easily be kept informed about when they were stopping and starting , going back to rehearse lighting changes and so on , with the result that he was often feeding the wrong words . |
| 4 | Quiss experienced the tiniest moment of fear , then savage anger , and was about to go down fighting — take as many of the little bastards with him as he could — when he realised that they were bowing and wringing their hands and making apologetic noises , not howling angry ones . |
| 5 | Maggie LeMan kept her eyes riveted on the occupants of the stage for a moment , where they were bowing and making the best of the half-hearted appreciation now being shown by clapping punctuated with cat-calls ; then , slowly leaning to the side , she picked up the bird cage as she said , ‘ What do I want with a concert party ? |
| 6 | Soon they were calling and shouting to each other as they moved off into the forest . |
| 7 | It was er er I mean the , the peasants apparently were , were sort of accounting , they were looking and say well this particular er landlord was , was very unhelpful , he was very anti us and in er because of that he will get a , a worse erm punishment than , than the other ones would . |
| 8 | The low lands were patched with hayfields at every stage of readiness , from bleached yellow to ferny green , and across the coloured surfaces people moved as though they were stitching and knitting at its texture , arms pulling on rakes , backs stooped under burdens on their way to the steadings . |
| 9 | The complexity , technology and chemical make-up of goods made it more difficult for people to understand what they were buying and to make a judgment at the time of purchase . |
| 10 | They were hooting and flapping their great woolly arms as they tried to climb on to a private jetty . |
| 11 | Even if they were reading or washing up , there seemed to be rays of heat running in the air between them . |
| 12 | They had always been fed a diet of worksheets which led them along step by step — now they were thinking and making decisions for themselves . |
| 13 | They were muttering and making sounds as the Men did when they were angry . |
| 14 | They were kicking and beating him . |
| 15 | Leila had planned to keep it rather a subdued affair , but another natro group happened along at the small site they were using and livened things up a little . |
| 16 | And then she heard a gunshot and the sound of a horn , and looking back she saw , high on Ballymacadoyle Hill , her own father and brothers and a crowd of others too , and they were waving and shouting — and suddenly she understood exactly what was happening : they were giving her their last farewell ; she was leaving Ireland , and might never return . |
| 17 | They were crouching and sitting behind the hessian screens in the typing-pool . |
| 18 | Emily and Mungo left what they were eating and rushed to join him . |
| 19 | One student told me that they were watching and waiting . |
| 20 | They were hoping and praying , on this blown-out Sunday , that the Lord would lift the North Shore up to them . |
| 21 | The Collector and Hookum Singh had their backs to this wall of flesh , with bayonets sprouting from between their legs and under their armpits ; they were shoving and shoving , and they in turn were being shoved by the other Sikhs , who were struggling to keep them in place . |
| 22 | They were singing and calling his name : ‘ Edward , Edward , we love Edward ! ’ they shouted . |
| 23 | They were singing and clapping to the rhythm . |
| 24 | She believed what she had said and yet those last words had a curious prophetic ring — as if somewhere in those uncharted seas which man calls Time , they were echoing and re-echoing into the future . |
| 25 | For this one day a year , the usually gridlocked streets of New York were closed to traffic and lined with nearly three million people who proved that when the craziness and complexity is forgotten for 24 hours , they can be among the most decent and welcoming supporters of the human spirit they were witnessing and cheering in the runners thronging their streets . |
| 26 | ever so bright , yes , they were playing and chasing sticks and |
| 27 | They were making and altering machines for specific customers , and the people who were prepared to pay for improved , labour-saving , machines at this time were the owners of the factories . |
| 28 | When a radical new result arrives , see how they all drop what they were doing and pursue the new promise . |
| 29 | We asked people to keep a diary of what they were doing and to fill in this diary every half an hour , saying where they were , who they were with and what they were doing , and we were able to see erm first of all that the range of people that you meet decreases when you 're unemployed , that you 're actually spending more time alone , less time with friends and other people . |
| 30 | Three businessmen were then prosecuted for selling Iraq machine tools for making weapons — but confidential documents showed that they had told ministers what they were doing and had been encouraged to carry on . |