ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by grandparents. Keeping "Werther's" in business

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since 1903.

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How should you change the highlighted portion below, if at all?

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The grandparents drove away in their car. As the children ran behind, shouting and waving

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goodbye.

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In this question, the word "as" is doing its best to be what's called a "subordinating

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conjunction."

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When we slap a subordinating conjunction on the front of what was formerly an independent

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clause, the clause's independent spirit is broken, and it suddenly becomes a dependent,

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subordinate clause.

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Subordinate clauses are always dependent on a main clause, and can never be on their own,

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without becoming fragments.

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The second supposed sentence here is a good example of this.

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"The children ran behind, shouting and waving goodbye," totally works as an independent

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clause.

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It can stand on its own two feet as a complete sentence, since it has a subject, "children,"

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and a predicate, "shouting and waving."

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However, as soon as we put "as" in front of this formerly independent clause, its legs

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are taken out from under it. Whoopsies.

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The addition of "as" signals that the clause is meant to augment the main clause instead

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of just doing its own thing.

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So, in our sample clauses, the grandparents who are driving away are the main event, while

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the children they're leaving behind are the secondary information.

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Man, we hope these kids' parents are still around. These grandparents are pretty negligent.

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One way to fix the original sentence would be to take out the period and just stick the

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sentences together.

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This would allow "as" to fulfill its dream of being a proper subordinating conjunction.

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Unfortunately, dreams rarely come true...

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None of the answer choices present this option, so none of these words are destined to connect

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anything to anything.

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We can't go around beginning full sentences with subordinating conjunctions, like "as,"

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that don't connect anything; otherwise the world would descend into fragmented madness.

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This means that we can not only get rid of choice (A), we can also eliminate choice (B).

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"While" is a subordinating conjunction as well, and it has all the same problems as

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its buddy "as."

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Choice (C) suffers from a similar problem. "During" is a preposition, a part of speech

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whose job it is to link nouns, pronouns, and phrases.

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Because "during" isn't allowed to link anything here, it also transforms the final clause

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into a fragment.

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It's kind of like this version of the sentence begins with a bridge that leads to nothing

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at all.

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Choice (D) is the correct answer because it uses a period to separate both independent

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clauses and lets them do their thing all by themselves.

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Hopefully, the grandparents in question here didn't leave these kids all by themselves.

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If so, somebody better call social services.

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