continual partial attention

23:19 Dec 9, 2016 

Olivier, votre contribution est precieuse pour eclairer le debat et se passe vraiment de commentaires. Je voudrais tout juste souligner qu'il faut comprendre le terme comme 'chronique' donc permanent ou recurrent comme vous le suggerez, selon le cas. Meme si l'anglais dit "partial attention", pas besoin de calquer l'expression en francais, qui ne se rend pas ni ne s'entend pas comme une formule idiomatique.
Desolee pour le manque d'accents.

16:50 Dec 9, 2016 

"Since the mid-19th century, many grammarians have drawn a distinction between continual and continuous. Continual should only mean "occurring at regular intervals," they insist, whereas continuous should be used to mean "continuing without interruption." This distinction overlooks the fact that continual is the older word and was used with both meanings for centuries before continuous appeared on the scene. The prescribed sense of continuous became established only in the 19th century, and it never succeeded in completely driving out the equivalent sense of continual. Today, continual is the more likely of the two to mean "recurring," but it also continues to be used, as it has been since the 14th century, with the meaning "continuing without interruption."