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Necrophagist Posted 6 years ago
Grammar

I just had to stop because I'd started

You're eating and you start feeling nauseous, so you have to stop. Immediately after this, you tell someone:

I just had to stop eating because I had started feeling sick.

Is this grammatically correct even though it just happened? Thank you..
  

Top answer

Necrophagist I just had to stop eating because I had started feeling sick. Grammatically correct, but it's not likely that a lot of people would choose to say it like that. The cause and effect are quite close in time, and it's quite easy to understand it as cause and effect, so the simple past all the way through the sentence seems like the better choice.

— CalifJim

  • Necrophagist I just had to stop eating because I had started feeling sick.
  • Grammatically correct, but it's not likely that a lot of people would choose to say it like that.
  • The cause and effect are quite close in time, and it's quite easy to understand it as cause and effect, so the simple past all the way through the sentence seems like the better choice.
  • The following sentence is different.
  • The time between cause and effect is longer, and the cause-effect connection is less direct — less visceral and more cerebral, you might say.
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1 Answers
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NecrophagistI just had to stop eating because I had started feeling sick.

Grammatically correct, but it's not likely that a lot of people would choose to say it like that. The cause and effect are quite close in time, and it's quite easy to understand it as cause and effect, so the simple past all the way through the sentence seems like the better choice.

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