Legal Writing

Opinion of, Opinion on, Opinion about

By Maeve Maddox

A reader objected to the use of ?on? in an example given in a post about prepositions:

REFERENCE: He asked my opinion on the matter. IMHO, I think this use is a stretch. I would substitute “about” for “on.” “He asked my opinion about the matter.” More and more it seems that writers have forgotten the word “about” and use “on” instead, a rather annoying tendency.

According to an informal web search using quotation marks around the phrases, opinion of is more common than either opinion on or opinion about:

?opinion about? 7,470,000 hits
?opinion on? 18,600,000 hits
?opinion of? 52,800,000 hits

The OED entry for opinion reflects this apparent preference, offering one example each for ?opinion on? and ?opinion about,? but 24 for ?opinion of.?

All three sound fine to me.

Full post as published by Daily Writing Tips on April 08, 2010 (boomark / email).