Tense Problem

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elcid  #46293  Sun, 19 Sep 04 06:40 PM
I heard the sentence....

1) I quit and you know what i do.

I am not sure whether there was "now " ot not. But my question is shouldn't it be

I quit and You know what i did.

so please help me out.
  
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matthewg  #46300  Sun, 19 Sep 04 07:28 PM
Hi Elcid,

You are quoting the sentence out of context. Please give us more information.
  
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elcid  #46301  Sun, 19 Sep 04 07:50 PM
Actually there was a husband and wife talking to each other.
And the husband leaves his job. Then his wife says that you
have left your "accounting job"(actually it was something else).

Then the reaction of the husband is sarcastic as her wife didnt know
the exact name of her husband's job.

then he says,"i quit and (now) you know what i do".

so this is the actual scenerio. I think it should have been
" You know what I did."
  
matthewg  #46303  Sun, 19 Sep 04 08:00 PM
The sentence is referring to a habit in the past, so I'd phrase it with "used to."

"I quit, and now you know what I used to do."
  
CalifJim  #46310  Sun, 19 Sep 04 09:11 PM
The impression I get is that the husband is saying:

Since I have quit my job (whatever it was), I now have no job at all. You know what I do now - nothing!

The shorter form of all that is:

I quit, and now you know what I do.

or

I quit, so you know what I do now.

("nothing" is implied.)
  
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elcid  #46360  Mon, 20 Sep 04 06:04 AM
thabk you!
  
POLITEJOKER  #46396  Mon, 20 Sep 04 01:59 PM
It's very common to hear Grammatical mistakes in everday conversations.

Some native speakers do make garmmatical mistake in speaking.

It's very good that we can notice it but don't bother too much to think about it.

It could be very confusing.
  
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