“I had been working on that project for months, so I was very disappointed when it was cancelled.”
“She had been crying for hours, so her eyes were red and swollen.”
“We had been waiting for the bus for so long that we were starting to get cold.”
At B2, in the English Grammar Profile, point 69 in the category of PAST is defined as:
Past perfect continuous for events which started before a time in the past and which finished, but where the effects or results were still important at a point in the past.
A search on iWeb for
had been _vvg + ‘so’ as a collocate to the right:
- Many did not believe me because I had been drinking so I probably just had drunk regret sex.’
- I was frustrated with the quality of the ecigs I had been using so I decided it was time for a change.
- Me and my buddies had been smoking so we were walking around in a park you know just like chillen.
- He went on to tell me how he had gotten into an accident and he had been drinking so they put him in jail and he needed money.
- However, this was the exact set I had been looking for so I took a chance.
- He felt neglected by his wife because they had been fighting so he took his 11-month-old daughter to the site of the crime.
- We had been swimming so she wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of bikini bottoms.
- When I came home with the kids, I thought Kate had been drinking so I told her to leave and she did.
We can also see that ‘drinking’ is the most common word in this structure. The following results are all infrequent clusters.
1 HAD BEEN FIGHTING SO HE TOOK 2
2 ‘D BEEN PLANNING SO WE HEADED 2
3 ‘D BEEN HEARING SO THEY CAME 1
4 ‘D BEEN DRINKING SO HE WENT 1
5 HAD BEEN WATCHING SO WE SAT 1
6 HAD BEEN USING SO WE SWITCHED 1
7 HAD BEEN USING SO I TOLD 1
8 HAD BEEN USING SO I DECIDED 1
9 HAD BEEN RAVING SO WE WENT 1
10 HAD BEEN RAINING SO HE CHECKED 1
11 HAD BEEN PINKING SO IT WENT 1
12 HAD BEEN LOSING SO HE STAYED 1
13 HAD BEEN EMAILING SO I LOVED 1
14 HAD BEEN DRINKING SO WE TRIED 1
15 HAD BEEN DRINKING SO THEY PUT 1
16 HAD BEEN DRINKING SO I TOLD 1
17 HAD BEEN DRINKING SO I RAN 1
18 HAD BEEN DRINKING SO I HOPED 1
19 HAD BEEN CRYING SO I FIGURED 1
20 HAD BEEN COVERING SO I WANTED 1
21 ‘D BEEN USING SO I GAVE 1
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