In the following two examples, is it possible to replace “assuming” with “provided” – and vice versa – without changing the meaning of the sentences? Or are these two conjunctions nuanced in meaning?
Incidentally, I was wondering which is the more commonly used: “provided” or “providing”? Many thanks.
Man A: So theoretically we could get in through the sewers.
Woman: **Assuming **we don’t mind the company of decomposing corpses.
Man B: And **assuming **you can squeeze through the grate. They barred the outlet to the river after I escaped.
Man A: Weeelll, good you’re here. Come in the nick of time! We’d have been gone by tomorrow.
Woman: You’re leaving?
Man B: **Provided **we can find the animals to carry us. Two of our horses dropped on the way, another two are too weak to haul anything.
I’m assuming (hah!) that you know both words do have some alternate meanings that wouldn’t allow a replacement. Provided in the sense of “gave something to” wouldn’t be the same as assumed. “I provided food and water for the parakeet” means something totally different than “I assumed food and water for the parakeet.”
But in the sense that you’re looking at, they are pretty much the same. Both of them are saying “take this arbitrary fact as a given.” It’s essentially creating a logical if…then scenario, where we can say “if we have” or “assume we have” or “provided that we have” interchangeably to let someone reason to a conclusion based on that.
You use “assuming” when drawing conclusion based on incomplete information, and the assumed things are your best gues of the conditions of the variables in play.
“Providing” is more a list of conditions that must be true in order for your conclusions to be valid.
“Assuming” refers to facts not yet in evidence (“Assuming Floyd Mayweather wins next week’s fight…”). “Provided” refers to facts that are in evidence, just not to you right now (“Provided that pi to the fortieth decimal is what I think it is without me having to look it up…”). I think.
I don’t really think the two words are interchangeable at all. “Assuming” means you are making an assumption about something. “Provided” means that whatever is associated is contingent upon something else.
You could say, “Assuming we can squeeze through the gate, I have arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 10.” That means you are making an assumption that may or not be true in order to take further action before you know whether the assumption is true.
If you say, “Provided we can squeeze through the gate, we can try to find a taxi.” That means that taking further action is contingent on being able to do the first thing.
Most non-professional writers will use them interchangeably. Or habitually use just one and never the other.
Some individuals will think one word is a stronger assertion that the unknown conditional is actually true versus the other. But I’d bet the populace is split about 50/50 as to which word they think is the stronger.
If I was writing carefully enough to care about the difference, I would tend to use “assuming” for situations where I don’t know the true situation and *cannot *influence it. And I’d tend to use “provided” where I don’t know the true situation and *can *influence the outcome. e.g.
“Assuming nobody has crashed on the freeway we’ll make it to the church on time.”
vs.
“Provided I drive fast enough we’ll make it to the church on time.”
But I truly don’t know if I’m the only English speaker who thinks this way.
You’ve raised an interesting point that I didn’t even think about! Now I wonder if these two words can be interchangeable in the following example. Somehow, the second set of Dad’s responses sound rather awkward to me.
Daughter: Can we travel to Japan this winter?
Dad: Provided you study hard. {*can *influence the outcome}
Dad: Assuming my boss allows me to take my days off. {*cannot *influence the outcome}
vs -
Dad: Assuming you study hard. {*cannot *influence the outcome}
Dad: Provided my boss allows me to take my days off. {*can *influence the outcome}
Actually I may have misled you a bit. As I think more about what I think & how I use those two it’s more like this:
“Boss: I can deliver that change by Friday, provided you get me the change order on Tuesday”
I’m tasking him. I’m making it clear to him that if he does it, he gets the desired results. And if not: not. When the change order doesn’t arrive timely, I have a good “out”.
But if I say instead:
“Boss: I can deliver that change by Friday, assuming you get me the change order on Tuesday”
Then I’m asserting something that we both just think will happen with no further effort on his part. So of course it won’t happen and it’ll be my fault on Friday for having made a crappy assumption on Monday.
IOW, *assume *is passive, *provide *is active. And I use that difference explicitly when I’m dealing with future uncertain events.
I believe there are other nuance differences, but I also think that there won’t be the kind of universal consensus on what those differences are or what they mean.
Said another way, the meaning of most any word in English is fuzzy and soft-focus. You simply can’t adjust your glasses until they’re crystal clear. If you look close enough, there’s always fuzziness. And once you assemble words into sentences the fuzziness multiplies. Questions of tone, emphasis, class, POV, all the rest are all inherently fuzzy.
That’s not to say there’s no point in seeking the best available understanding. Just accept that the best available may be pretty vague.