This week’s post is a snap to understand, once you hear the explanation. There is also a very effective mnemonic device for remembering the distinction for this week’s words, but Ms. Picky, in the interest of full disclosure, must say that she did not personally come up with it; it has been handed down through many generations of junior-high-school grammar teachers and editors.
Continual/continuous. Both continual and continuous share the meaning of “ongoing.” The distinction is that continual means continuing to happen over and over again, while continuous means continuing without stop. You might think of continual as a dotted line, and continuous as an unbroken line.
Examples:
His career was marked by continual struggle and few triumphs. (He had one struggle after another, but he also triumphed from time to time.)
At Arlington National Cemetery, the eternal flame at John Kennedy’s grave burns continuously. (It keeps on burning, without ever being extinguished.*)
Mnemonic Device: Continuous ends in ous: One Uninterrupted Sequence.
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*Ms. Picky's example is not perfect. There is a story that the “eternal flame” was actually extinguished on one occasion, when an overzealous contingent of Catholic-school students doused it with holy water. A quick-thinking guard with a cigarette lighter is said to have saved the day and reignited the flame in a couple of minutes. But never mind; that's almost continuous and almost eternal.
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