should be

[Offroad]

Dear teachers

Does this sentence read well?

If you knew what you are doing, there would not be a gun on my desk, should be!

I am worried about the 'should be' part. Not sure what it means exactly.

Thank you

[Barb_D]

If you knew what you were doing, there wouldn't be a gun on my desk, would there!

[5jj]

@ Offroad,

Did you hear this, or need to say it? if the former, I suggest you find a new employer; if the latter, please forget that I mentioned it, sir.

[Offroad]

@ Offroad,

Did you hear this, or need to say it? if the former, I suggest you find a new employer; if the latter, please forget that I mentioned it, sir.

I heard that sentence on a TV series!

[emsr2d2]

I heard that sentence on a TV series!

If you heard the exact words "If you knew what you are doing, there would not be a gun on my desk, should be!" then you were clearly watching something acted by non-native speakers or it was very badly translated/subtitled/dubbed.

[Offroad]

If you heard the exact words "If you knew what you are doing, there would not be a gun on my desk, should be!" then you were clearly watching something acted by non-native speakers or it was very badly translated/subtitled/dubbed.

No, they are educated native speakers of English. I'll try again. I may have misheard something!

[billmcd]

No, they are educated native speakers of English. I'll try again. I may have misheard something!

As is the case with many (all) languages, "reduced speech" in which two or more words are compressed, making understanding difficult if not impossible, perhaps your "should be" might have been "should there be". In reduced form it could have sounded like "should be", but was actually pronounced "should er be" in rapid fashion. If this was the case, as someone once said about things that occur unexpectedly, "stay loose, the woods are full of them".

[Offroad]

I found a link to it on the internet:

It's a video, you may want to set the time to 3:34

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tz3R7heeXI

Thanks

OBS: You may find the language inappropiate.

[Raymott]

I found a link to it on the internet:

It's a video, you may want to set the time to 3:34

Space Poop Jokes - YouTube

Thanks

OBS: You may find the language inappropiate.

This has become an incredibly long thread for a question that could have been disposed of simply if you'd posted the context in the first post.

The line goes, "If you knew what you were doing, there wouldn't be a space toilet where my coffee table should be."

Was that the question? Or did you really want to discuss the use of "should be" as a tag question?

[Offroad]

I just wanted to learn how to use 'should be' the way they did.