as it were

"I wrote him a letter, before they started, passing the baton as it were," he said.

“What a fine day for a group of strangers with no prior knowledge of each other to meet by chance on the garden path, as it were.”

Giving lessons “on the hoof,” as it were, was proving to be a mighty challenge.

But Mr. Sachs instead sticks to the script, as it were, delivering something in the “My Dinner With Andre” tradition of two people simply talking to each other.

The latest evidence for the prosecution, as it were, comes from the Social Security rolls, which show that record numbers of people are now claiming monthly benefits.