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Understanding the difference between commonly confused words will help you avoid making errors in English usage. Let’s examine the difference between the following:
While both continual and continuous generally mean ongoing, the terms aren’t completely synonymous. Mixing them up is not a grave error, but careful writers prefer to maintain the following distinctions:
continual
Continual means happening frequently or recurring often or in rapid succession, but with intervals or pauses in between: it is intermittent.
The city came under continual bombardment during the war, with only a few periods of respite here and there.
continuous
Continuous carries a stronger sense of something happening with no pauses or interruptions: it is incessant and never stops.
Unlike some small waterfalls that dry up in the hot seasons, Niagara Falls boasts a continuous flow of water.
Continuous also can refer to space, such as a line with no gaps, whereas continual refers only to time.
The fence formed a continuous line along the border between the two countries.Even if you can differentiate between these words, your reader might not be able to. For greater clarity, feel free to use repeated or intermittent for continual and uninterrupted for continuous instead.
☛ To help you tell these words apart, remember that continual ends in al, as does the word tidal: both refer to something that happens in repeated waves.
The word continuous has a sequence of three vowels near the end of the word (uou) that is unbroken or uninterrupted, just like the meaning of the word continuous. You could also think of the final “o-u-s” as standing for “one unbroken sequence.”
Photo credits:
Photo 1: Image by ELG21 from Pixabay
Photo 2: Image by Neil Morrell from Pixabay