Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is lesson 12. Today we're going to look at the
difference between assume versus presume.
Yeah this is obviously assume is a lot more common and presume we don't
hear as much but it does come up and students will often ask me the
difference when this does come up. So let's look at some differences right
away. That we can one way we could distinguish I mean both of them actually
you know somebody just thinks something is some way and it could be wrong. So in
this way it is similar. But we can clearly see some differences. First
assume is informal and it's much more commonly used. We often hear people say
they assume this and they assume that. Okay so presume is more formal and it's
used in more official situations especially in law or court or things
that are official. Yes so something to do with the police something in court cases. Something in
law. We tend to hear of presume used more. The difference between the two words is
also based on the level of certainty. How sure you are about something. Assume has
less certainty. Presume has some reasonable certainty but both could be wrong. So
again you do see that there's some point where there are similarities but again,
assume has less certainty. It's based on more of just thinking and feeling. Presume
is based on some evidence, so let's look on. The use of assume is often based on
feelings without any effort to check facts. All right here's let's look at the
definition. To assume to just think something is true without any proof or
evidence and a lot of times we often hear people say this. We often hear people
say don't just assume. So here's the first
example. Don't just assume if you go to that restaurant several hours before
your booking that they will have a table available for you. So maybe maybe it's a
little bit based on hope. Maybe you're thinking that it should be just true but
it may not really be true.They probably won't. This has the feeling of like it was
careless. You should have called you should have
checked to make sure your thinking was right or your thinking was correct. All right.
Let's look at the second one. Don't just assume the boss will give you
the promotion because you have more seniority. This one might even be based
on your own bias. You know you want it to be true. You think you deserve it.
So you might assume it for that reason. You're not really basing it on you know
on too many facts here. So assume has a more negative
connotation to it. As though the person was again careless or lazy. You should
have done more checking. You should have looked it up or you should have known
better. That there's a good chance that it's really not correct. We often hear
again just to repeat again. We often hear people say don't just assume. I can
actually remember this when I was in elementary school. I don't know I think
it was maybe the third grade or fourth grade. I remember the teacher had invited
because I went to a Catholic school, and the teacher invited, it was a female teacher and she
invited the priest in to explain this to us and that seemed weird because you
know he didn't normally teach us. And this is what the priest said. You know he
wrote this on the board and I guess they wanted to teach the students with this
point and I don't know maybe this has been repeated some of the times before
but they say if you assume you will make an
ass out of you and me. And they wrote the word assume on the board that's what he
did. So he said if you assume you know when he pointed to the word ass. You will
make an ass out of you because here is you know just a letter U . You and me
Yeah why did they do this? I don't know I'm thinking back now possibly maybe at
that time maybe some students might go home and tell their their parents,
you know the teacher, the teacher said ASS in class today. And maybe if they have to
priest do it. Maybe nobody will say anything because it was the priest. He was just
explaining is trying to teach. Now of course my reasoning could be wrong. I'm
kind of assuming that could be the answer. I really have no way to check.
Obviously I could not call the school or find the teachers anymore. I'm not even
sure if the priest who this is even still alive. But you know that would be
assuming. So this is again this is the way that we often hear people say it. Again
It has a little bit of a negative feeling to it.
Presume is not as negative. Presume says to presume. To think something is
correct because you think it's likely. You think it's much more likely to be
correct. You could still be wrong but it's more
likely to be correct to be true usually based on some evidence or some
reasonable evidence. But it has not been confirmed or proven for certain. Then we
could say we often might use presume in this sense. And I give you a few
examples here. I presumed you wouldn't like this dish because you usually don't
like spicy food. All right you know you actually do have some evidence. You have
some experience. Maybe you know this person and they don't like they don't
usually like spicy food so you think it's very highly likely he doesn't like
this. So in in a very you know formal way. you may have said I presumed you wouldn't
like this. So because you think it's highly likely it's
not true. Of course you could be wrong. Maybe this is an exception. Maybe he
likes this particular dish. Some witnesses this is the second example
some witnesses saw that drunk tourists fall of the cruise ship. His body was
never recovered and he is presumed dead. Yeah you heard this on the news a lot. uh
you know like if somebody just disappeared, disappeared in a mountain and
they haven't been heard of for a long time. We don't think it's it's impossible
that he could have been rescued from somebody. Maybe like in one of these
movies maybe he was rescued and he had amnesia and he forgot who he was. Not
very likely uh so this is why we often say you know somebody is presumed dead.
Yeah somebody fell into the ocean .Nobody is usually that good enough swimmer to
be able to swim all the way to shore. So chances are highly likely and he might
be dead unfortunately. So so again especially with police reports or court,
we hear you know presumed, presumed dead. And another one. This also goes back
to maybe why courts use it or in law. Remember there is a law that says that
you know you should like if you're a juror on a jury, you should have the
presumption of innocence. And of course they do this because you know they don't
they want to lower the chance of someone being falsely convicted or accused. So
you should try to presume this person is innocent unless it can be proven very
strongly that then he is guilty. So we say so we say presumption of innocence,
The burden of proof must be on the accuser not on the defendant. Yeah so you
know you hope that jurors will keep that in mind. That the amount of evidence should be
kind of overwhelming. That it makes you more certain because just like we say, we
don't want to falsely convict someone of a crime. All right I hope that clarifies it
for you. Again just review you know just to review it.
Remember assume, assume tends to be a little more negative. It tends to be we tend
to think somebody was not careful. They were just thinking something is
true based on feelings. Possibly based on on the bias Possibly you know that they
really didn't make any effort to check it out.
Presume there might have been some evidence but you again it hasn't been
proven for sure but that's but because of that little bit of evidence you think
that it's more likely that it's true so we often might use presume in that sense.
Okay thank you thank you very much. Again I hope that clarifies it.