Ages ago, I had asked my English faculty what was the difference between 'Assume' and 'Presume'. But I never got a satisfactory answer. Infact I consulted a dictionary also but both words had the same meanings. And we didn't have access to internet during that time. After that, it had skipped my mind for long. But I know the right answer now and I thought I should share it.
Presume comes from the Latin word "præsumere" meaning to 'anticipate taking up' where it moved to Old French "presumer" and then into Middle English with the meaning "to take upon oneself, to take liberty" in 1375. It now has the meaning of "to believe something true without proof of non-contrary evidence." It is used a lot less often than assume; It appears about 90% less often than assume in all media. It is more commonly used when discussing legal cases. Specificallly, it is used when talking about innocence: "Presumed innocent until proven guilty." (Presumed because there is no contrary evidence, yet) It is commonly used with innocence, debt, and information.
Assume comes directly from Latin and actual shares a root with presume, "sumere" means "to take" and "as-" or "ad-" means "to, or up." This gives us the meaning of "to take up" in Latin. This appeared in Middle English as "to take up into heaven" in 1436. Later it took on the meaning of "to suppose something true without checking or confirming it" or "to take up the responsibilities of." The word presume can not be used in the later sense. For example the sentence "Sparky presumed the role of Grand Commander of the Universe." is wrong. The word assume needs to be used instead. Overall, the word assume is used 10 times more than presume (in spoken and written English). Assume is usually used with (collocated with) responsibility(s), role(s), position(s), control, leadership and other words referring to power.
Hope this helps.
Source: English Spark
Source: English Spark
7 Comments:
quite a research
That's not research. It is called 'Pliagiarism'. Just copied from somewhere. Now that you mention it, I think I should mention the source site.
:)... i think u r refering to 'plagiarism', but doesnt that mean that you pass someone's idea as yours.......but in your post it dint look like one
:) Haha... Trust me, I anticipated this reaction of yours. Yes, your definition is right and my spellings of 'Plagiarism' are wrong. Sorry for the typo.
But don't you think I should have mentioned my source site when somebody else has done the research.
:)...the correction was not intentional, just that wanted to check your diction ;)
Well it depends on you whether you give the source or not ....from my perspective there was a doubt in your mind..you found the answer and shared with others....a little less complicated explanation :) thats all.
Checking my diction, eh! :)
So, Have I passed or failed? I am pretty much sure it's the latter one.
Even though it was unintentional on your part, but I liked that you corrected it. Only thing was that I knew it beforehand. After posting my first comment, I saw the typo but I didn't correct it. I thought 'what the heck'... I am human. Infact I have a very valid reason for the error but personally I don't believe in justifications. After all, mistake is a mistake.
I did feel guilty for not mentioning the source site. But your first comment (I assume that all the anonymous comments are by you only.) made me feel all the more guilty. I feel better after mentioning the source site actually. I am sure I would not like the idea of somebody flicking my poetry and passing as their own.
wow dint want to make you feel awkward :-) but just commented on the efforts given in finding wat u wanted to know :) and yes all the post were mine :-)
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