7 - If you will and as it were

Summary

Language may be regarded as a vast body of water, an ocean if you will, with rivers, streams, rivulets pouring into it (Cohen 2005; emphasis LJB).

Introduction

This chapter examines the development of two comment clauses deriving from adverbial clauses, that is, belonging to Quirk et al.'s (1985) second type of comment clause. Both serve a metalinguistic function, denoting that the speaker views the accompanying expression as imprecise, inappropriate, or unusual in some sense. The chapter begins with an examination of the pragmatic functions of these expressions in Present-day English (§7.2). The histories of these expressions will follow: as it were derives from Old English (§7.4), whereas if you will is of much newer provenance (§7.3). Section 7.6 discusses the semantic and syntactic developments of these comment clauses.

If you will and as it were in Present-day English

Neither as it were nor if you will receive in-depth attention in grammars and dictionaries of contemporary English. The OED (s.v. will v.1, def. BI17) notes that parenthetical if you will is sometimes used “to qualify a word or phrase” and carries the sense ‘if you wish it to be so called, if you choose or prefer to call it so.’ It provides examples dating from Old English to the late nineteenth century. Webster's online (s.v. will) glosses if you will as ‘if you wish to call it that.’ The OED observes that parenthetical as it were (see as adv. [conj. and rel. pron.], def.