What construction should I prefer with "assumed"?

Which of the following sentences should I prefer?

All widgets may be assumed perfect.

or

All widgets may be assumed to be perfect.

To my eye, the first seems a little terse and the second rather verbose. What would you suggest?

Solution 1:

Of the two, the second ("All widgets may be assumed to be perfect") sounds more natural to me than the first. Depending on the context, I might prefer to write this in active voice instead of passive voice, which is frowned upon in some situations, including many formal ones.

Solution 2:

Part of the problem is the ambiguous meaning of these sentences. The use of the word perfect implies no doubt about the quality of the widgets. Adding the phrase "may be assumed" brings back that doubt, and puts the onus on the audience to decide wether or not to make the assumption.

I am a native English speaker with a technical background. To me, these sentences raise an immediate question: Why would I assume that all widgets are perfect? If the author had no doubt about the widgets, they would simply have said: "all widgets are perfect". This implies that widgets are not all perfect (which seems realistic), but I "may" assume that they are.

To address this problem, I would use the following sentence instead:

It is safe to assume that all widgets are perfect

This sentence maintains the passive voice, but specifically addresses the ambiguity. It acknowledges that there is no such thing as a perfect widget, but implies that the author has considered the situation and is confident enough to treat all widgets as ideal. The author takes responsibility for the quality of the widgets, and leaves the audience free to ignore any imperfections in the widgets for the remainder of the discussion.