Please Pay Attention to “attention”

Today’s English
February 19th, 2017

Do you know that “give attention to what I say" is an incorrect expression?  You can use “give" here if only you use possessive adjectives as in “your attention”,  “his attention” and “her attention”.

Compare:
1.Please, pay attention to my instructions. (Not: please give attention to my instructions.)
Please give me your attention for few minutes. (Correct)
Would you mind to give your attention to his speech. (=please don’t talk and disturb)

Others common phrases related to attention are :  to draw attention, to catch attention, to attract somebody’s attention, pay special attention, to call someone’s attention to something, short /long attention span and pay no attention:

1.The headline drew my attention to the political turmoil in Tamil Nadu.

2.She dressed to kill and tried to catch attention of the visitors.

3.I attracted his attention to the changes in the syllabus.

4.I called his attention to the notice issued by G.M.

5.Please pay special attention to this G.O.

6.Nowadays students have short attention span.  What to do?

7.I admired his undivided attention to my long lecture.

8.Nowadays students pay no attention to what the teachers say.

9.It has come to my attention that you are going to resign your job. (= I have been informed that …)

10.Don’t pay any attention to him. He will get you in trouble.

( Do you know? : Researchers surveyed 2,000 participants in Canada and studied the brain activity of 112 others using electroencephalograms.
The results showed that the average human attention span has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000, or around the time the mobile revolution began, to eight seconds.
Goldfish, meanwhile, are believed to have an attention span of nine seconds.)