Example sentences of "had been [v-ing] for [det] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | I am convinced that stuff had been accumulating for many years in this cellar and that Ernest Griffiths had no idea what was in there . |
| 2 | The US and North Korean governments had been communicating for several years at a low level through the US embassy in Beijing . |
| 3 | A report to the meeting said services to the region had been deteriorating for several years , with fewer trains running at less flexible times . |
| 4 | A report to the meeting said services to the region had been deteriorating for several years , with fewer trains at less flexible times . |
| 5 | He had been speaking for some five minutes or more with force and conviction , carried away by the things which concerned him greatly . |
| 6 | Both countries had been speaking for some time of their desire to improve relations , without making much progress . |
| 7 | Film shown on Algerian television that same evening recorded that he had been speaking for some minutes . |
| 8 | To judge by the clutter of bottles , glasses , and over-filled ashtrays , and the brooding , weary faces , they had been debating for many hours . |
| 9 | Many had been decomposing for several weeks . |
| 10 | This was reportedly a concession which US oil companies had been seeking for some time . |
| 11 | The City and the Confederation of British Industry had been looking for some indication of earlier participation in the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS . |
| 12 | For the first time she recognized that secretly she had been looking for some way out for herself and Midnight . |
| 13 | The phone had been ringing for some time . |
| 14 | He had found the one he had been searching for all those years — the one wavering on the brink of eternal damnation . |
| 15 | The wood at the back of the painting was deeply scored with a dagger as if someone had been searching for some secret crevice or compartment . |
| 16 | By the time I was twelve years old I had been thinking for some time about getting a bird of my own . |
| 17 | In fact , he was so happy with the idea that had come to him from the writer , Peter Shaffer , he began the serious rethink of his career which friends like Lance Percival had been thinking for some time was overdue . |
| 18 | If it was a turning point in terms of ‘ proving ’ the relationship , it also marked the change in image Kylie had been wanting for such a long time . |
| 19 | The Old Stopfordians ' Association had been trying for many years to raise sufficient money to build the Pavilion , and indeed had sold the Harrison Towns field some three years previously for this very reason . |
| 20 | It would have been more usual to have asked her with careful casualness to wait behind after the meeting but what he had to say was private and he had been trying for some weeks now to cut down the number of times when they were known to be alone together . |
| 21 | All had been festering for many years . |
| 22 | Jagatan raised himself on one elbow , and Burun guessed that he had been drinking for most of the afternoon . |
| 23 | Reagan hammered away at themes which he had been developing for some years and which would be wheeled out every time he ran for public office . |
| 24 | This was the moment Lynch had been building for all his life . |
| 25 | In his own way , Ted had been building for this moment too . |
| 26 | I decided to go back to the village , to thank him for all his help , and to carry out a plan I had been considering for some time . |
| 27 | Bernard and Laura escaped on to their sailing boat for much of the summer , a yacht they had been enjoying for some years now , and they pottered around Mykonos in Greece . |
| 28 | Another , a woman who was living , and had been living for many years in , in continuous adultery ! |
| 29 | Abingdon 's trade had been waning for some time , with its fulling mills lying in ruins and unemployment rife by 1538 . |
| 30 | Philip Larkin had already published two novels — Jill ( 1946 ) and A Girl in Winter ( 1947 ) — before he established himself in 1955 , with The Less Deceived , as the best poet of his generation ; and John Osborne 's first play ever to reach the public theatre , Look Back in Anger ( 1956 ) , was written by an actor untouched by academia who had been writing for several years and a stranger to all of them . |