english language

take for granted

Assume? Or presume?

@JudyEv (339776)

Rockingham, Australia

November 18, 2024 6:48pm CST

I have said quite often in comments that I shouldn’t ‘assume’ so much. Sometimes I’d use ‘presume’ and I got to wondering what the difference was and did it matter. It seems that while both mean to take something for granted, presume implies an ‘informed decision based on reasonable evidence’. Assume should be used if there is little or no evidence. However, in legalese, ‘presumed innocent until proven guilty’ has a somewhat different meaning and can be defined as ‘to suppose to be true without proof’. I wonder if I’ll remember to use the right one. I wouldn’t bet on it. I assume the photo was taken in France? Or should that be presume?

14 people like this

13 responses

@rebelann (112786)

• El Paso, Texas

13h

Oh my this English language of ours, I've been told it's hard to learn.

7 people like this

@JudyEv (339776)

• Rockingham, Australia

12h

I should think it is quite difficult.

1 person likes this

@AmbiePam (92611)

• United States

13h

I never really thought about that one. I saw something the other day that reminded me of you.

4 people like this

@JudyEv (339776)

• Rockingham, Australia

12h

How lovely is that? Is it a wall hanging? Thanks for thinking of me and for putting up the photo. We're just closed down the website where we had all the endurance photos. We won't be doing any more rides and the website is costing us quite a few dollars each year.

3 people like this

@AmbiePam (92611)

• United States

11h

@JudyEv Yes, it is. I’m sorry you won’t be doing any more rides, but you sure made a lot of people happy for a long period of time by doing such great work.

2 people like this

@JudyEv (339776)

• Rockingham, Australia

7h

1 person likes this

@BarBaraPrz (47296)

• St. Catharines, Ontario

12h

Don't presume the photo was taken in France, as sunflowers grow everywhere. But I assume you think that because Vinny van Gogh liked to paint them.

3 people like this

@JudyEv (339776)

• Rockingham, Australia

12h

I assume also that it's because it''s the only place where we saw sunflowers growing in such numbers.

It took us days to be on the right side of the sunflowers so they had their heads turned towards us.

3 people like this

@FourWalls (67883)

• United States

10h

I presumed that you would tell us not to assume anything.

3 people like this

@JudyEv (339776)

• Rockingham, Australia

7h

See? There you go. You got that wrong because you presumed!

1 person likes this

Lenore Plassman

@sallypup (61052)

• Centralia, Washington

11h

You are very nice so I assume others aren't mean to you if you do make a piddly mistake.

3 people like this

@JudyEv (339776)

• Rockingham, Australia

7h

I'm not sure I'm THAT nice but thank you.

1 person likes this

@Dena91 (16608)

• United States

13h

I don't think I ever thought about the subtle differences between assume and presume. Thanks for the post.

What a lovely photo

2 people like this

@JudyEv (339776)

• Rockingham, Australia

12h

We'd never seen fields of sunflowers before. I'd never really thought about them being crops.

2 people like this

@jobelbojel (35567)

• Philippines

1h

I am only assuming that this presume is somewhat different from assume. LOL

1 person likes this

@wolfgirl569 (106074)

• Marion, Ohio

46m

I would assume that's a pretty picture

Dr Souvik Chatterji

@sathviksouvik (19461)

•

12h

the photo of the sunflowers are awesome

1 person likes this

@JudyEv (339776)

• Rockingham, Australia

7h

We were very excited to see such a large field of them. They grow them like this in Queensland but not in my state.

Anindita Sengupta

@aninditasen (16389)

• Raurkela, India

33m

The photo is evident and therefore we should use presume.

@thelme55 (77013)

• Germany

9m

I am always careful whenever I use assume or presume. I don’t want it to go wrong in my sentence .

1 person likes this

@LindaOHio (178331)

• United States

4h

Thanks for the language lesson! Have a good day.

1 person likes this

@JudyEv (339776)

• Rockingham, Australia

16s

Did you learn something? It's not very important really but I found it interesting.

@porwest (90368)

• United States

5m

You took all the explanation out of my mouth. Yep. Presuming is based on evidence of some kind while assume is more of a guess.