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3465 25th Street, Suite 17
San Francisco, CA 94110 | (noun)
[pri-ZUMP-shahn] 
1. arrogant behavior that is disrespectful, offensive, or inconsiderate: "I realized that Anne needed a ride home, but her house was so far away, and I was so tired, that I felt it a presumption for her to even ask."
2. the act of accepting something as true
3. a belief based on reasonable evidence or strong likelihood
4. a condition indicating that something exists or is true
5. (as in law) an inference of the truth of a fact or anther conclusion derived from other proven facts
Origin:
Before 1250; from Middle English, 'presumpcion': arrogance; borrowed from Old French, 'presumpcion' and from Late Latin, 'praesumptionem': audacity (nominative 'praesumptio'); from Latin, 'praesumere': to presume or anticipate. In action:
"Call it vanity, call it arrogant presumption, call it what you wish, but I would grope for the nearest open grave if I had no newspaper to work for, no need to search for and sometimes find the winged word that just fits, no keen wonder over what each unfolding day may bring."
Bob Considine. It�s All News to Me (1967).
"It's a testament to playwright Peter Shaffer's pen that to this day when people hear the name Mozart, the image of Amadeus' whimsically childish genius replete with glass-shattering cackle instantly comes to mind. Yet beyond the liberty Shaffer took with Mozart's personality, two important exaggerations of his remain in our collective imagination: Mozart's supposed abilities to both instantly conjure masterworks of the utmost ingenuity and then to perfectly dictate them from his head to staff paper in the form we now hear them.
In fact, Mozart wasn't only more workmanlike than many of us think, crafting numerous sketches and drafts of his pieces just like other composers. He was what you might politely call a 'creative collaborator.'
Ironically, 'The Beneficent Dervish' lived on only because it was lifted: If Mozart had never lived, it surely would have disappeared into the ether. Which may be why Mozart took it in the first place: He probably thought little of the common 'singspiels' performed around him in 18th-century Vienna and never counted on assiduous musicologists like David Buch digging them up. His presumption is damning but also humanizing: It turns out that classical music's most enigmatic genius was either a casual copycat, one of the boys, or, more realistically, a little bit of both."
Adam Baer. "Wolfgang Amadeus Copycat: Did Mozart plagiarize?" Slate.com (February 13, 2002).
"Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant."
Michel de Montaigne (1533�1592). French essayist. "Apology For Raymond Sebond," The Essays (Les Essais) (1580).
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