Most Common Collocations with Attention (Part 2)

Hadi Noori

16. Attract attention

To attract attention means that people start to notice you, but not necessarily because you want them to.

You can attract attention because you are the best at something, whether or not you go around telling everybody about your accomplishments, or because you are simply different from other people.

Wallace attracted the attention of the faculty at Harvard because he created a new synthetic material that could be used in many different situations.
Polly the parrot attracted attention because she kept repeating what other people were saying around her.
There are many ways to attract attention, but the best way is to subtly let people know about the cool things you are doing, without having to brag about it.

17. Commands attention

Something that commands attention is something that you cannot help but notice and pay attention to. Some people have personalities that make it easy for them to command your attention, but some people and things command attention just because they are so different and useful.

When companies such as AirBnb and Lyft first came out, they commanded attention because they were so different, yet incredibly useful.
Politicians, especially presidents and prime ministers, command attention because of the power that they have.
This urgent task from my boss commanded my attentioneven though I was working on something else.

18. Divert attention from something to something

If you were reading, but then you change to paying attention to the show playing on the TV, your attention is diverted from your book to the TV. This means that you change the object of your focus from one thing to another.

“I now want to divert your attention from the slides back to your book,” said the professor.
After a loud BOOM, Jessie’s attention was diverted from playing her piano.
When their mom came home, the children tried to divert her attention away from the mess they made in the kitchen to the new card that they made her.

19. Give attention

To give something attention means to pay attention to it, usually despite the fact that it may not be beneficial for that person.

The professor gave me her attention even though I was asking a very elementary question.
“Give more attention to writing your reports!” yelled the secretary when she read the half-baked reports that the employees turned in.
Give me your attention for just one more minute, and then you can go.

20. Lavish attention

To lavish attention on someone means to give as much attention as possible to that person. Typically, this is said for people, who pay a lot of attention on someone because they love them.

Patty lavished so much attention on her only son that he became a spoiled brat.
The husband lavished so much attention on his wife that she became the envy of all her friends.
Molly tried not to lavish attention on any one of her children for fear that they would think she was being unfair to her other children.

21. Direct attention from something to something

To direct attention means to focus intently on something. Your attention can be directed from one thing to another.

Professor Max directed his students’ attention to the board when he began class.
Once I got tired of the task, I directed my attention from my work to a new TV show that I was watching.
I had not noticed it before, but once I directed my attention to the classroom it looked much different than I remembered.

22. Direct attention back to

If your attention has wandered from something, you can direct it back to a person or task that you are working on.

My son got distracted talking about his Transformers, so I directed his attention back to the book.
Trevor directed the attention of the media back to the main issue after they started reporting on irrelevant details.
The teacher directed the attention of her students to the principal, who was speaking on the stage.

23. Shift attention

To shift your attention means to move your attention from one thing to another.

When you are done reading, shift your attention back up to the board, please.
Jimmy shifted his attention from his ex girlfriend to a new girl that he met at summer camp.
“Shift your attention back to me,” said the professor.

24. Have one’s attention

If someone is paying attention to you, you have their attention. This often refers to a person, but can also refer to things and problems.

Global warming has the attention of the media.
Now that I have your attention, I would like you to flip your books to page 352.
If you have someone’s attention, you should treasure it because they are choosing to spend their time paying attention to you.

25. Vie for attention

When there are many things that you could pay attention to, those things vie for your attention. While you could also describe this as competing for attention, vie is more often used.

With so much technology nowadays vying for children’s attention, it is no wonder that many of them have trouble concentrating on just one task at a time.
All the men are vying for Rebecca’s attention.
I could not care less what you think, but I definitely am not vying for Jackie’s attention.

26. Bring something to one’s attention

If you notice something that seems wrong, you can bring that error to the attention of your boss, or someone who can fix the problem.

Usually, this phrase is used if you notice a mistake somewhere, or you are teaching something and you want your students to notice specifically something that they might overlook otherwise.

“I want to bring everyone’s attention to the fourth line down on page 6, does anyone see the mistake here?” asked the teacher.
When I suspected that there were mistakes in the accounting records, I brought my suspicions to my supervisor’s attention right away.
The purpose of newspapers and TV news is to bring current events to the attention of their readers and viewers.

27. Focus attention

Similar to giving your undivided attention to something or someone, to focus your attention on it or them means to make it the center of what you think about and pay attention to.

Focusing your attention on something means that you give your undivided attention to it and try to actively block out all other influences on that thing.

Adam focused his attention on swimming well, so he was able to block out the distraction of the crowd and win first place.
The president focused the attention of the nation on gun control issues after a gun related tragedy.
If you can focus your attention on finishing your task, you can get it done more quickly.

28. Receive attention

To receive attention means that other people are noticing you, and that you are the object of the attention. This phrase is most often used for people, groups, and ideas.

All the not for profit organizations try to earn more donations when they receive media attention.
Because the logistics team of the party planners received the most attention, they were able to put on a huge and elegant party.
When I first received attention from my friend, I did not know that we would end up married five years later.

Attention + nouns

29. Attention to detail

If you have a special talent for noticing details and small things that many other people will overlook, you may be paying attention to detail.

While you can pay attention to many things, this phrase specifically means that you look for the small things that might make a big difference.

If you had more attention to detail, you would have caught all these spelling errors in the report.
Thank goodness Quinton paid a lot of attention to detail, so we were able to answer all the questions that people would have about our product before we created it.
Attention to details is often a great advantage.

30. Attention span

Someone’s attention span is the length of time that they will be able to pay attention to something. This includes listening to someone talk about it, having them finish a task, etc. Often, the attention span of children is much shorter than the attention span of adults.

If your child has ADHD, it means that they have a short attention span and will be distracted easily.
Even if you have a really long attention span, it helps to take breaks while you are doing a task.
The attention span of a child is much shorter than an adult’s, so you must be more patient with them.

31. Center of attention

To be the center of attention means to have the attention of everyone in the room on you.

While you can use this phrase to describe a presenter who is speaking to a large group of people in a room, and therefore has all of their attention, this is usually not how center of attention is used.

It is usually referring to a situation in which you would expect other people to be paying attention to many different things, such as a party or a conference.

If someone is the center of attention in one of these scenarios, they are someone who is very charismatic and doing something that makes you notice them.

In any room that she enters, Paula becomes the center of attention.
Even though there were many works of art at the auction, only the piece by Pablo Picasso was the center of attention.
Amy never expected her research to turn her into the center of attention at the conference, but it turns out everyone at the summit was interested in her work.

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