the implicit 'imo'

are you somebody who reads this in where it seems plausible (in all cases of opinion or disputed fact, etc)

or do you need it spelled out such that its omission alters any statement made as an arrogant profession of absolute certainty where none can exist.

or is there another way.

oh christ my mother was being an imo pedant earlier. i dared opine about fucken superman three and she's all 'IN YOUR OPINION! Always say 'In my opinion!' she always does this ffs

it's forgiveable though. one of the more tolerable pedantries

it's kinda secret shorthand for 'i preemptively agree that reasonable ppl may differ," like social lubricant to disarm opposition who may be known to respond hostilely to dissent

imo

the fact that it's ones opinion is implied. nut up and defend your opinion/criticize theirs, but don't hide behind the "IMO". 'IMO' used for comedic purposes is quite ok though.

xxpost otm

whoever observes that i'm lacking a quote-mark in the above post deserve a fucken dropped ice-cream tho imo xps

I worry I use IMO or variations on it too often, and that it's a passive agressive/defensive way of preemptively cutting off objections before anyone else can respond, like if anyone disagrees, well it's just my opinion (and implicitly your counter argument is also just your opinion).

You'd think everyone would read it as implicit but even so there are times when I don't - usually when reading someone who appears to be abnormally aggressive, cocksure or a dick. In such cases it is nice to see the imo from time, just to have confirmed that yes, this poster is aware that others may think differently, that dissent is allowed, etc.

Sometimes I have even been called out as that dick - to my massive confusion, unless on a rare troll. Basically Mordy otm.

sometimes it's important to remind ppl that not every thought that occurs to them is a fact xp

I'll also stick in an 'imo' as code for 'I'm not really that sure about this' or 'tbh I don't actually care that much'

but tbh sometimes I put it in just to balance out a one-liner, so it's got the right visual or aural cadences imo

so are we all 100% sure that this is a rubbish assumption not to make? no 'imo' about it, like

I always assume it, but likewise assume that others will not assume it of me

the tic i use to soothe people irl is the prefix "i feel like"

I really hate people who get defensive and go 'well, it's only my opinion' but without actually defending what they're saying/what they think. It's likely not 'only' your opinion if that leads to action.
It's only my OPINION that certain groups of people are not as worthy of others, oh and I'll just let that affect my day-to-day living.

Generally IMO is implied; but context can over-ride and imply otherwise. IMO.

I use "I think" a lot but am trying to reduce it after having an interview with the director of my dept at work who criticized me for overusing it and not sounding decisive enough.

i always write "imo" or "i think" or other qualifiers like that basically for the reason mordy gave: i like to remind myself that my opinions aren't the revealed Word. imo over 70% of people self-righteously go through life believing that they are always right, not just in their opinions on music or whatever, but in terms of interpersonal conflicts. these are the people who think that all of their ex-girlfriends are "crazy", and that the professors in the classes they failed "hated them" etc. if they were wrong ever it was an innocent mistake, but they don't extend this courtesy to others. if they change their mind they don't admit that, but try to reframe their previous statements in such a way as to maintain an appearance of consistency. i want to be the opposite of this type of person.

Saying "that's just my opinion" is fine but usually unnecessary. Saying "that's just your opinion" is unforgivable shittery.

otm imo

"it's just my opinion, and I'm entitled to it" is about as misguided as people who go "AIN'T I GOT THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH" when criticized.

Say why it's your opinion, engage in the argument, don't driveby.

When it comes to fairly subjective discussions regarding aesthetics and the like, it seems silly not to assume that people are generally just expressing personal opinions.

xp neanderthal, some people are dumb though and can't adequately articulate why they believe what they believe. when they are asked to do this they interpret it as aggression.

that's their problem

imo over 70% of people self-righteously go through life believing that they are always right

you think that 30% of ppl go through life not believing they're always right?

love the imo covering the 70% stat btw

heh. i originally wrote 90% but thought 70% sounded more reasonable for a totally fake, baseless statistic

90% would be fine as it would make it a variant of Sturgeon's Law.

I like seeing it occasionally, I like using it occasionally, just as a reminder in both directions. It doesn't have to be everpresent. My least favorite thing about Geir was that an acknowledgement that his opinion wasn't cast in carbonite had to be beaten out of him every year or so.

my least favourite thing about the ppl beating geir is that they didn't assume it

I agree

I really hate people who get defensive and go 'well, it's only my opinion' but without actually defending what they're saying/what they think.

it is important to remember that people who don't start every sentence with "I think" believe the world revolves around them, and people who use the word "I" a lot e.g. by saying "I think" every sentence are narcissists who also believe the world revolves around them

...I think

(unable to formulate a post or email without "I think", "I guess", "I wonder if" etc etc)

re. the "how dare you. that's my OPINION!!!!" crowd:

i think that lots of people just believe whatever allows them to feel at peace with a hostile reality. they don't want to be interrogated about their reasoning because the degree to which their opinions "work" for them is more important than how true they are. most ilxors might be different in that they are tend to be more analytical than the average person, and so can't really understand the perspective of seeing your opinions as static, fixed things that you OWN rather than things that are constantly being revisited and reevaluated.

i have been a wanker irl on more than one occasion because something like that is probably true and i am hyper-analytical. when it suits.

in re: the thread question - i probly err on the side of getting narky when people don't imo, but on the other hand some people use an incredibly dogmatic tone when expressing their o which kinda invites whatever throwback they get

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqt83v75Ix1qao4gno1_500.jpg

especially when talking about matters of taste i think, where there's nothing but o. i dunno, i am pretty tentative about most forms of knowledge and consequently suspicious of people who behave as if they aren't. but on the other hand i use the dogmatic voice of God shtick for rhetorical yuks quite often. i figure that's ok if it's clearly signposted.

y/n there's a positive correlation between ppl who require hearing 'imo' when others give opinions, and ppl who get offended when their own opinions are challenged?

yes.

xps where did I leave my hobbyhorse about people who've been trained to value being analytical without ever wondering if they're actually being it, noticing that not all thoughts they have are analytically derived, etc

so it becomes "I had a thought and because I am super logical science-brain it is automatically universal truth, everyone else is a babbling illogical hater letting their silly emotions cloud things", especially if the everyone elses start using words like "feel"

not that that is really to do with the conversation in hand, and not that I never do this (ahem)

y/n there's a positive correlation between ppl who require hearing 'imo' when others give opinions, and ppl who get offended when their own opinions are challenged?

― Mordy , Sunday, October 13, 2013 9:56 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, imo

there is probably overlap.

i get v. pissy when people* claim opinion to justify thinking things that seem open to evidential disproof. i can get really worked up about that shit. lately i've come to see it as more of a flaw in my mechanism than anything.

*by people i mean my old man, more or less.

unable to formulate a post or email without "I think", "I guess", "I wonder if" etc etc)

yeah im v like this myself in conversational tone i think, this is quite different tho, imo, to requiring others to use it when i disagree with them kind of thing

the clause ppl are raising of ppl using 'it's only my opinion' to defend hateful thoughts or w/e- again i think that's quite distinct from requiring all non-mathematical statements to carry a spoken proviso

oh and i stop being tentative about knowledge pretty damn quick when somebody says something that i feel deep in my heart to be evil-wrong.

on the one hand i wanna believe rational debate is possible and can lead to refinements of knowledge, on the other hand i get this "all argument is futile cause we're all territorial apes" despair quite often

gosh i wonder what prompted this q

requiring all non-mathematical statements to carry a spoken proviso

ok yeah it is pretty base to be this person. but there is a way of making non-mathematical statement that implies they are opinionated and a way of making those statements that implies you think you are dropping knowledge from Sinai and the latter way is fuckery. imo.

I think getting offended when your opinion is questioned correlates pretty well with being a human, on either side of the imo fence

that said, my own data point fits your graph nicely, I suppose. I pepper the "imo"s (but often take them back out for brevity) and get offended; 99% of the time I probably don't even notice their presence or absence from other posters, but if a poster sounds particularly strident and never uses them I may reflect on this as damning evidence of some kind of character flaw, I admit

btw nothing I said on this thread is to be taken as indicative of me taking sides on any other thread, especially not ones where I like everyone concerned and can't even remember who might have said what or not said what or said what about not saying what where. obviously / imo

absolutely, i wanted it as a thread cos i think it comes up quite often, had thought of it before tbh

im not taking any sides in any other thread either cos i like everyone involved too fwiw

if a poster sounds particularly strident and never uses them I may reflect on this as damning evidence of some kind of character flaw

there is a way of making non-mathematical statement that implies they are opinionated and a way of making those statements that implies you think you are dropping knowledge from Sinai

yeah well there'll always be context, yeah

yeahhh

Everybody otm itt.

imo

I guess what it boils down to is the difference between the politely offered, genuine 'imo' that means something like "This is what I think, but I'd like to hear what someone else has to say" versus "That's only your opinion" and "This is my opinion and therefore I am entitled to keep it and not change it or listen to any new information or arguments" *fingers-in-ears, humming and singing*

emo

I am rather literal-minded and nit-picky about exact meaning, so that I almost invariably qualify my statements to allow for the possibility of my being wrong. When I omit such qualification and I get challenged, I am inclined to think the person challenging me is much too literal-minded and nit-picky.

Yeah, that's pretty much me too. I have a pretty thin skin when it comes to being challenged on something that I consider a matter of opinion. It causes me to sit out a lot of hardcore arguments on this forum tbh. I'd rather not be involved in a flame war over whether the Beatles suck or not or whatever.

they dont u clown

"imo" is a good way to soften the blow when you're speaking the truth to somebody who is too stupid to realize that they're wrong.

TS: imo vs. imho

'imo' is a cute and stupid tic that deserves to be lampooned as much as every other conscious attempt to make meaning. -bob marey

most i see it used on ilx is with a degree of self-awareness about what saying 'in my opinion' and shortening to 'imo' means in the context of the internet.

I got into the habit of using it after coming to ilx and consider it more for me/the speaker than anything else, a healthy self-corrective

I prefer to use 'as far as I can see' or 'as far as I know' but when I type out 'As far as I can see, blah blah blah', it makes me think hang on, is that actually true, have I looked into this enough. And is an implicit request for more information that other people in the group might have access to. Whereas putting imo at the end of a statement feels sus somehow, a bit too easy.

I think most folk use it without overdoing it here. The militant IMOs are hilarious. When I was in high school this guy got upset with me saying "You know, I have never heard you say 'in my opinion' after you state your viewpoint, you're forcing your views on me! What is wrong with you?", and I replied with some ish about how my AP English teacher told us that the fact that a statement is the author's opinion is implied and does not need to be quantified...and dude exploded all like "WHAAAAAT KIND OF FUCKING STUPID ENLGISH TEACHER IS THAT, HE SHOULD BE FIRED, PAPERS SHOULD BE CHOCK-FULL OF IMOS I'LL KILL YOUUUUU"