Propositions used Independently.—1. The imperative sentence addressed to the reader; as, “Mind you, this was the world as I first knew it.”—Holmes. This independent element is like a note of warning, telling the reader not to conclude that this is the world as the writer knew it later.
2. An exclamation like “Bless your soul!” or “Thank God!” wherein the subject of the verb is omitted. Such an expression reveals the author’s feeling about the statement; as, “The civilized world is learning, thank God, more and more of the importance of physical science.”—Kingsley.
An expression somewhat similar to this is found in the sentence, “Thanks to you, I am able to speak French.” Here the cause of my ability to speak French is given in the expression Thanks to you; but this is not so constructed as to be a grammatical modifier of the predicate, and hence must be considered independent.
3. A proposition introduced by as.—This has the structure of an adverbial clause, but in meaning it is not a modifier of any part of the sentence. Many of these expressions are stereotyped; for example, as it were, as it will be seen, as the case might be, as it was called. They are usually parenthetical. Their value in the sentence can best be seen from a few examples.
(a) “Time, as it will be seen afterward, did not allow Sir George Lewis any chance of making good this prediction.”—McCarthy. The independent element here informs the reader that the author will not drop the matter under discussion with the single statement of it, but will take it up more at length later.
A similar expression, “as we have seen,” takes the reader’s mind back to something he has read before.
(b) “The Saxon, as it appears to me, has never shown any capacity for art.”—Lowell. The independent clause signifies here that the author makes his statement not as a matter of fact but only as a matter of personal opinion.
(c) “She was, as I had supposed, a gentlewoman whom a change of circumstances had brought down from her high estate.”—Holmes. This independent clause conveys to the reader the author’s satisfaction in making a statement that is true and that coincides with his own supposition.
(d) “‘You don’t know what your thoughts are going to be beforehand!’ said the ‘Member of the Haouse,’ as he called himself.”—Holmes. This independent element gives the authority for the preceding quotation, and together with the quotation marks absolves the writer from all responsibility for spelling and pronunciation.
Familiar forms of this clause are—as everybody says, as the Bible says, as Shakespeare puts it. We often use the first of these when we are unwilling ourselves to be held responsible for our statements. The other two are sometimes used lest people should think we are trying to pass off a quoted remark for an original one.