Assume or Presume?

What's that? "Listening", "Letting go". I presume she knows what she's talking about,

but...

Hi. James from engVid. This lesson goes out to Jen from Tennessee. She asked about the

difference between "presume" and "assume", and today, we're going to work on it. Thanks,

Jen, because as a -- actually, I like to think of myself as someone who likes to read a lot

and has a pretty good handle. "Handle" means, like, control of or knowledge of English.

I was just surprised when I was working with "assume" and "presume" how similar they are

and the differences. So let me help you today. All right, guys? Let's go to the board.

"Presume" or "assume". Even a lot of native speakers make a mistake when using it. Actually,

I'm kind of lying because they just generally use "assume" and don't bother with "presume".

It's only usually used for formal occasions. But what does "assume" mean? Well, let's look

at the word. Mr. E, assume the position. As you can see, he has his arms and legs spread

out. If you've ever done this before, boys and girls, you need to go home early and you

need a spanking. Your parents should raise you better. That means to bring you up better

because you're a bad person.

To "assume", to "take up". Really, we mean "to take", which means to go or to start.

If he assumed responsibility at the company, it means he started responsibility. He started

to do something or she started, right? They assumed control. They took control at that

time and started to be in control from then on.

Next, "position". That's a position. Now, sometimes people say, "Assume the position

in baseball. You're going to get down and get the bat ready. Assume the position." If

you're going to jail, assume the position. There's other positions you can assume, but

that's for another time. Okay? So that's what we mean by "assume". And I should have explained

to start from "assume". "At" means away from evidence. Usually, when we assume something,

we don't have evidence. We think it's true. That's it. We just believe or think. We have

nothing to show us it's true. I assume the sun will come up tomorrow. I have no proof

or evidence. I just think so." Okay?

So that leads us to this one, "believe" and "expect". We just believe it, so we expect

something to happen. It doesn't mean there's a reason for it to happen. It's just my belief

and expectations. Okay? So, I believe I will be here tomorrow because, well, I'm here today.

Well, I'm here today. No proof, but I hope it'll be true tomorrow. Okay?

Another one for "assume" is "pretend". "She assumed the dead woman's identity." All right?

"She pretended to be the dead woman." It kind of comes with "start". You start something,

but with "pretend", you continue to do it. So when somebody assumes someone's identity,

they take it on. So Superman and Clark Kent, "He assumed the identity of Clark Kent." Because

he's Superman, really, and he pretends to be Clark Kent. Cool?

Another one, "think". Sometimes, people will say, "Let's assume this is true." And they

mean let's pretend so we can think about it. Let's assume we're all rich millionaires living

in Brazil right now, and we're having champagne. All right? We're not because we're watching

this video. But let's assume. Let's think or pretend. Okay? Because there's no evidence

to say anything opposite, we can just assume anything. And that's why it's used in more

informal English and used more regularly by English speakers.

"Presume", though. "Presume" has a different meaning. But just before we get there, let's

look at "assume" as a verb. Right? "Assume", "assuming". As a noun, we want to say "assumption".

That's an assumption you made. You said something. You didn't have evidence. You just said it

was true. Now, let's look at the adjective. We can have "assumed". When you assumed something,

you took it for granted. You just said, "It's just true." Once again, there's no evidence.

You just said, "It's true." But if you can assume something, like you assumed I loved

you, you just took it that I loved you, you didn't have evidence, and you didn't even

care. That's what we mean by "take for granted". "Taken for granted" means you don't care.

You just say, "It's true, and I don't care about anything else. I'm not going to put

the time or effort to even try to prove it." Okay?

Another adjective meaning is "assuming" and "unassuming". "Assuming", in this case, is

quite funny. If you use it here, it means sort of, like, arrogant, overconfident, and

an assuming smile, because it's like, "I know." But remember, it's without evidence, so you

shouldn't really be assuming in this way.

The other opposite that's funny is "unassuming", which means "common" or "normal". "He had

an unassuming smile, like it's average and common. Nothing special. Nothing threatening."

"Threatening" means make you feel afraid. Right? "The house had an unassuming appeal

to it." A common or normal appeal, so you might like it. One thing we use in English

to actually explain "assume" is because it comes away, there is no connection with evidence,

we usually say, "Don't assume", or you make an ass, which is a donkey, an animal, or you

make yourself stupid. You make an ass out of you -- that's you, the EngVid viewer -- and

me. So don't assume.

So if you're not too sure of this lesson, make sure you go back over it again, and don't

assume you understand it until you've mustered it.

Now let's look at "presume". It looks very similar to "assume". In fact, they both share

in something -- truth. Right? Somebody believes something is true. In this case, you assume

without evidence, so you think it's true, but you haven't got any evidence to say it's

true. In this case, it's interesting. You think it's true because of something -- evidence

you had from before. Okay? When I said, "Here, the sun will come up", I assumed it would.

I had no evidence. I didn't care. On this one, I say to you, "I presumed it would come

up because it came up -- it came up. It came up yesterday. It came up the day before, and

the day before that, and the last hundred years it came up. Therefore, I presume based

on previous evidence."

Now, remember, evidence from yesterday or proof doesn't mean it's going to happen tomorrow,

but it gives you an idea it might, and that's why we use "presume". In fact, in law, in

Canada and the United States and Great Britain, we say, "You are presumed innocent." That

means until proven guilty. We believe you are innocent based on evidence from prior

cases -- and that means before cases -- you are innocent until we have something opposite

to prove you are guilty. Okay? "Presumed innocent". France is the exact opposite, by the way.

You're presumed guilty until proven innocent. So don't think it's everywhere in the world.

All right?

Now, you'll notice how I explain that, and it comes here. So look. "Believe until contrary".

"Contrary" is this fancy word that just means -- whoops. "Contrary to belief", I can't spell

English. I forgot the C-O-N. Sorry. "Contrary". It's a new English word. Welcome to EngVid.

"Contrary". To the contrary. Okay? Yeah. So what happens is, as I said with the law, you

are innocent until we see something opposite.

The next one is, if this is true, and this is what happens -- do you remember I gave

the example about the sun? Yesterday, the day before, it kept coming up. So then because

of that, I have strong evidence, so I believe what I say is right. This leads people to

become overconfident, and in some cases, arrogant. Because they have some knowledge from before,

they think, "Now I know everything, so anything I say is right." And I can presume, which

is to believe based on experience from before, everything is true. Well, boys and girls,

most of us know now that if you go past your country and go in the water, you don't fall

off the edge of the Earth. A lot of people presumed this before because ships weren't

built very well, would go sailing and disappear. So they would say, "A giant monster at the

end of the Earth would eat people because we know from evidence they never come back."

They know better now, right? But they were overconfident and arrogant, so they didn't

even try to check if the facts were right. So be careful of "presumption". "Presumption",

there we go. "Presumption" is the noun form of "presume". "Presume" is the verb. And if

we go down here, "presuming" or "presumptuous", we'll notice these two words, which are adjectives

to describe something, go right back up to "arrogant" and "confident". I'm sorry, "overconfident".

I don't want to presume too much here, but I'm going to assume -- I know I have no evidence

right now -- that this lesson was pretty good for you. We're going to do a quick recap because

I don't want you making any assumptions on your own that might be incorrect. And our

unassuming worm friend, he's relaxed, so he's going to give me a minute or two to do this

for you, all right? So what we want to remember is "a" for "assume" is away from "evidence".

There's no evidence to help you to prove it's true. So when you assume something, you say,

"I just assumed because nobody told me. I had no other evidence I had to assume." You

understand? "Presume" means "before". So if you presume, you should be able to show someone

some evidence that this is why you thought it would be true. "Presume" is formal, usually

used in law or medicine, right, where they have evidence and they can say, "Because of

this and this, I presume this would be true." "Assume" is commonly used. In fact, 95% of

the time, Canadians will say this, and they won't say that, even though "presume" is more

accurate. You can test your knowledge. Where are you going to test it? Well, I want you

to assume you're going to learn, right? And you're going to go to a special place called

"engVid", and you can assume you'll learn something, expect and believe, right? And

then you'll start assuming the identity of an English speaker, yeah? I presume from there

-- well, I hope I'm wrong -- that you might start getting overconfident and arrogant.

Don't do that, okay? Because if you do that and you presume too much, you might make a

fool of yourself. See, that's going to believe up until something contrary happens, all right?

So that was a quick overview. And I need you to go to www. -- assuming you have a computer,

right? www.engvid.com, where me, my fantastic worm, and -- I did it again, man. I did it.

No "con", no "com". Oh, assuming I can teach English, you could probably presume I would

get these two right, right? Right. Anyway, you go to www.engvid.com, and then you can

actually stop assuming and start presuming that you have mastered this language. Thanks,

and I'm out. I'm going to work on ".com" and "contrary". And I assume I'll learn it by

the time I get back. ".com" and "contrary". ".com" and "contrary".