assure 

1. See ENSURE, INSURE, ASSURE.

2. A couple of commentators have different points to make about the syntax of assure. Copperud 1970 insists that it takes an object— and it does. Bernstein 1965 says assure takes of, and it also does that sometimes, as we shall see:

Assure can take an ordinary noun object:

. . . the most positive way available to assure ultimate success — Clinton F. Robinson, Dun's, January 1954

The direct object may also be a clause:

. . . mothers anxious to assure that their daughters get noticed socially —Vance Packard, The Sexual Wilderness, 1968

But most often assure — much like promise—takes two objects—a direct and an indirect. The indirect object can be a personal noun but is usually a pronoun.

The direct object may be a noun:

. . . and thus assured it the entire vote of New York —Dictionary of American Biography, 1929.

More often it will be a clause, with or without that:

. . . a car trader, who would assure us that our car could not possibly make the crossing —William Faulkner, New England Journeys, No. 2, 1954

Linda assured me this was a verbatim translation — Cobey Black, Saturday Rev., 23 Oct. 1971

Sometimes the clause is replaced by a phrase with of:

. . . to assure them of academic due process —AAUP Bulletin, December 1967

------ Webster's Dictionary of English Usage