I’m all for brevity in chat conversation. It’s the one area where it’s OK to use jargon as a shortcut, and if you can abbreviate or use initials, then so much the better.

I’m all for humility too. We should all try to remain humble and avoid getting too big for our boots. Hubris and arrogance are at best an annoyance, and at worst, well, they’re pretty offensive.

When someone asks me my opinion on something, however, and it’s a subject I’ve got a lot of experience in, I’m sometimes loathe to write IMHO – in my humble opinion. I think we should be able to write IMKO – in my knowledgeable opinion.

I think you can still be knowledgeable with humility, you don’t have to lord your experience over people. After all, they’ve deferred to you for a view.

Positioning your opinion as humble, on the other hand, lessens its importance, making it feel less authoritative.

So I prefer to use IMO on its own when I’m asked my opinion on something I know something about. But I still like IMKO.