Okay now this brings up a good point. Oh yes...I have always understood [edit: I mean, according to the great cosmic source] IMHO to be ' ' humble opinion.
While in college I had a professor and a class mate who both harped about the use of qualifiers such as "in my opinion". If someone used this expression, the professor would say,"we all know that it's only your opinion. You don't need to explain this to the class". My buddy, a real academician [and probably quite insane] would say the same thing frequently. Anyway, I took this to be good academic etiquette. The problem is that the rest of the world expects it. Little quirks of the trade like this appear snobby to the rest of the world. There is a difference between stating a known fact, and stating one's opinion. I have heard objections made by others who are responding to a news or science report, or interview, in which this style of discourse was used.
