draw attention/ attract attention

[moonlike]

Hi
In the following sentence,
He wears a hat because he doesn't want to ------------- attention to the fact he's bald, which one is correct?
attract/ draw attention?
He draw my attention to the mistake, means he made me see the mistakes.
Attract the waiter's attention, means do something to make the waiter notice you.

In the above two examples, I can get it. However, I still need help to digest it. It seems I haven't got it well. :-? Could you kindly help
me with it?
Thanks a lot.

 

[Chicken Sandwich]

Hi
In the following sentence,
He wears a hat because he doesn't want to ------------- attention to the fact he's bald, which one is correct?
attract/ draw attention?

NOT A TEACHER

To me it sounds better with "draw". Also, a search in Google Books shows that this phrase is much more common with "draw" than with "attract":

- "draw attention to the fact that" = 887,000 hits.
- "attract attention to the fact that" = 6 hits.

 

[moonlike]

Thanks, I'd like to know what can be the difference or how can we get it? How can we get which one to use?
By the way, what do you mena by 'hit' here? You mean 6 people would go for 'attract' here? Could you say how you found it?
Thanks a lot.

 

[Tdol]

If you search in Google for a phrase with " " around the phrase, it will say how many occurrences it has of that exact phrase. While attract attention is a common enough phrase, it is uncommon to use it before the fact that.

Two very good sites for usage are these:
Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
British National Corpus (BYU-BNC)

They have huge databases of texts that have been marked grammatically that you can search. They give a good guide to whether something is used.

 

[Gillnetter]

Hi
In the following sentence,
He wears a hat because he doesn't want to ------------- attention to the fact he's bald, which one is correct?
attract/ draw attention?
He [STRIKE]draw [/STRIKE] drew (past tense) my attention to the mistake, means he made me see the mistakes.
Attract the waiter's attention, means do something to make the waiter notice you.

In the above two examples, I can get it. However, I still need help to digest it. It seems I haven't got it well. :-? Could you kindly help
me with it?
Thanks a lot.

The answer to your question, as is the answer to many language questions, is that it is a matter of popular usage. Many of my students will use the phrase "stand up" to mean get out of bed. There is nothing wrong with this phrase, but most people will not understand the meaning the speaker has in mind. Using the correct terms comes with time, conversations with people who speak English, and reading.