As it was /As it were

Многофункциональное и многозначное служебное слово as упот­ребляется в различных устойчивых сочетаниях, в частности, в син­таксических фразеологизмах.

As it is соответствует эмоционально-усилительным выражени­ям «в действительности», «и так», вводному слову «однако»: we hoped things would get better but as it is they are getting worse — мы надеялись, что положение улучшится, но в действительности оно ухудшается; you have too many friends as it is — у вас и так слиш­ком много друзей. То же значение сохраняется в выражении as it was: she was near enough to tears as it was — она и без того чуть не плакала.

As it were — вводное предложение, соответствующее русскому «так сказать»: he is not equal to the task, as it were — он, так сказать, не совсем соответствует назначению.

Примеры:

(1) They laid for me. Luckily Manuel had warned me — he's a good boy. As it was, Castro nearly had his knife through me gizzard. Got me left arm badly. (Gals.)

[Утром они взбунтовались]. Устроили мне засаду. К счастью, меня предупредил Мануэль — славный парень. И все-таки Кастро едва не проткнул мне глотку ножом. Здорово поранил левую руку. (Гол.)

(2) Не had counted on living to the normal Forsyte age of eighty-five or more, when Irene would be seventy. As it was, she would miss him. Still, there was Jon, more important in her life than himself... (Gals.)

Он раньше рассчитывал прожить нормальный форсайтский век — восемьдесят пять или больше. Ирэн к тому времени было бы семьдесят. А теперь ей будет тяжело его лишиться. Впрочем, у нее останется Джон, занимающий в ее жизни боль­ше места, чем он сам... (Лорие)

(3) Doolittle: That's it, Governor. That's all I say. A father's heart as it
were. (Shaw)

Дулитл: Вот, вот, хозяин! Я и говорю. Отцовское сердце все-таки. (К.)

(4) Князь Петр Михайлович Волконский занимал должность как
бы начальника штаба государя. (Тол.)

Prince Pyotr Mikhailovich Volkonsky occupied the position, as it were, of chief of the Emperor's staff. (Dunn.)

Задание

Переведите следующие предложения на русский язык.

1. With Higgins's physique and temperament Sweet might have set the Thames on fire. As it was, he impressed himself professionally on Europe to an extent that made his comparative personal obscurity,... a puzzle to foreign specialists in his subject. (Shaw)

2. He could have been killed. As it was he suffered severe back injuries. (Collins)

3. At school he always beat me without effort — as it were by nature. We were at school together at Saint Athelstan's College in West Kensington for almost all our school-time. He came into the school as my co-equal, but he left far above me, in a blaze of scholarships and brilliant performance. (Wells)

4....we were still busied with this employment when we found ourselves fused, as it were, into a dense conglomeration of passengers and passengers' friends and passengers' luggage; all jumbled together on the deck of a small steamboat. (Dickens)

5. Kate and Octavian, charmingly, ebulliently wedded, took, as it were, the thrones which awaited them. (Murdoch)

6. Instead, Alix over the fish pie had talked of the finds at Wetwang, the burials at Eastwold. She was fascinated to learn that the Kettles had actually lived at Eastwold, practically on the site, as it were. (Drabble)

7.He would have answered, but at that moment there unrolled itself from one corner of the studio a veil, as it were, of the filmiest gauze. He rubbed his eyes, but the grey haze would not go. (Kipling)

1.20.Prepositional phrase "to + noun/pronoun"

Сочетание предлога to с существительным или местоимением может указывать на лицо, чья точка зрения выражена в предложе­нии. В таком значении оно нередко занимает начальную позицию и обособляется: to his parents, his behaviour was astonishing — по мне­нию его родителей, он вел себя изумительно.

Примеры:

(1) "Now, what does she mean by that?" he thought. The word was to him extravagant and dangerous... (Gals.)

«Что она подразумевает под этим словом?» — подумал Соме. Оно ему казалось экстравагантным и опасным... (Лорие)

(2) Two hundred and fifty years after Hogarth, we are still, to the French, a nation of rostbifs. (Iain Gale)

Прошло двести пятьдесят лет со дня смерти Хогарта, а мы по-прежнему остаемся, по мнению французов, нацией «мясни­ков». (Пер. наш. — Н. Ф.)

Задание

Переведите следующие предложения на русский язык.

1. To the very young, to schoolteachers, as also to those who compile textbooks about constitutional history, politics, and current affairs, the world is a more or less rational place... To those, on the other hand, with any experience of affairs, these assumptions are merely ludicrous. (Parkinson)

2. To him officers and men might belong to the same biological genus, but they were of an altogether different species. (McCullers)

3. To you this information may be valuable, but to me it is all nonsense.

4. To Georgina he may be the best director in the world, but to me his last film was a complete failure.

5. To some of us American films are better technically, but as far as human nature is concerned, we prefer European.