That is the whole point of saying IMHO instead.  It is a word of its own(im-HO) that conveys a whole meaning of its own independent of the phrase associated with it.  It means that the person is about to say something absurd, but they want to assure you that they are deadly serious.  In a similar way, lol doesn't really have any relationship to laugh out loud, but instead signifies that  the post isn't meant to be taken seriously or else when used alone as a sign of approval.  My personal favorite however is BS (not to be confused with an ScB) which signifies that someone just pulled the preceding out of their a**.

Oh I almost forgot:

BS.

lol  :)

"IMHO" still generates in me the urge to reach through the monitor and throttle the insufferable little goit that typed it. Somehow, the act of abbreviating it doesn't make it any more polite - just cowardly. Somebody announcing that their point is humble (usually in such a way as to imply that your point is rather more humble than their's) doesn't do them any favours, either. It's like that running gag about Honest Joe's. I mean - dead to irony? Just not plugged in? What?!

Sorry. It just winds me up. :-)

I have the same reaction to people who habitually start paragraphs or conclude them with "actually", "as it happens" or "in point of fact". They're wallpaper words - they're there strictly to make a badly-thought-out idea look a little less bare.

huh. to me, "imho" gets used more when you're treading on the edge of what could be a flame-war, & you want to express your opinion but not necessarily rile everyone up worse. so you tack on "imho" to, uh, indicate that it's YOUR two cents, & uh... ymmv. (hahahaha)

tho' i use it when i'm being purposely obnoxious sometimes too.

eh, i guess so, but i've never seen it used w/as much frequency as "imho," so it's that one that seems to have gotten stuck in my (& others') minds.

i tend to explain myself more when i'm trying to get across that it's MY pov & that i don't necessarily think it's fitting for everyone, tho', so i don't use it an awful lot. instead, i go into this whole paragraph on "well, here's where i'm coming fr. on this..." comes fr. doing women's studies--you get really conscious of not truly being able to speak for anyone else who is coming fr. somewhere else.

yeah, but i disagree w/your main premise here, that it makes a person sound ingratiating & oily & all that. so to my mind, intention is the most important thing to keep in mind when considering this phrase. imho.

*ducks*

i just wanted to clarify: when i said above that in my experience the phrase gets thrown around when ppl are trying not to make a heated debate explode into a flame war, i didn't mean that ppl would be saying nasty, flame-ish things & expecting that by tossing out an "imho" they would get away w/it. more like when ppl are stating opinions in a non-flamey way, but the tension's a little high & so they want to make an extra effort not to appear like they're flaming someone.

Is there a single phrase in the English language more ingratiating, more condescending, more oily, more downright annoying, and one that could possibly make a person sound less humble than this? 

Nope :) 

I prefer a simple "I think" or "I believe."  IMHO, like all acronyms, has been used and abused to the point of nonsense.  We don't even all think it means the same thing!  I agree with Ian's initial comment, but I also understand where ElderTurtle is coming from.  Without body language or tone of voice to convey much-needed information in a BBS society, we are forced to rely on these poor substitutes.

Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to generate more communicative written language - we all have a different mental perspective of the same symbols.  I suppose that what offends or doesn't will depend entirely on who's reading, and when.

Gads, where the heck did all of that come from?  And no, it's not a humble opinion, it's what I think :)

Sorry to bore you all.  I'll slink back to my job now...

Ah, but the problem with IMO is that is ambiguous how you should pronounce it and makes reading it awkward.  Do you say I-mo or im-O?

Well, Pretzalz, I think that's sort of the issue, isn't it?  You don't know how to pronounce it because it's not meant to be spoken, only read. 

So say it however you want to :)

And Ian, play nice!  LOL

Well I must say that I have used the acronym before, though sometimes I mistakenly think that it stands for In My Honest Opinion. I suppose that that's little better since I would hope all of my opinions are honest. I suppose it comes from laziness, though.

I think the difficult thing about communicating in this fashion is that it is so hard to interpret tone from these written words. The same things is a concern where I work where much of the communication is through email. Add to that the fact that you are dealing with people to whom English is a second or third language and it becomes even more difficult. I think that people use those terms to make themselves seem less commanding (this is what I think and I'm right) and more accomodating (this is what I think though you may think differently).

On this site I don't think it's as necessary, but I'm sure in other places, people look at it differently. I agree, though, that when you spell it out it seems silly.

I find it weird. *grins*  I do pronounce some of them, just not imho. What is really bizarre is when you start to say them out loud IRL.
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I would like it much better if it would mean 'honest' instead of 'humble'. It seems much more... uh... honest.

Ian darling, I wasn't telling you to be nice to ME, it was your previous comment regarding pronunciation...again, not having the ability to interpret tone of voice has slain me!

And *hugs* back :)