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Reader question: Please explain “received opinion”, as in the following passage (Spotify not a threat to Apple - more an opportunity, TelecomTV.com, July 30, 2009): According to digital music expert, Gerd Leonhard, it’s actually in Apple’s interest to boost models like Spotify for all they’re worth. That’s because, contrary to received opinion, Apple doesn’t make huge dollops of money from the iTunes download side of the business - it makes a modest margin. The big money is in selling its high-margin music playing devices. Of course these include the iPod Touch and the iPhone - two gadgets capable of running a Spotify client. My comments: The received opinion about Apple is that it makes a lot of money from its iTunes download business. That, as the digital music expert points out in the above example, is not true – Apple makes most of its money from selling gadgets, including the iPod and the iPhone, and increasingly these days the iPad. Anyways, received opinion is what’s of our primary concern here. The thing about received opinion is, of course, that it’s “received”. That is, opinion that’s been received from others who have formed the “opinion” first. In other words, it’s second hand. Also known as “received wisdom”, received opinion refers to the idea most people have about what is true or false. Like “conventional wisdom”, received opinion is conventional, or commonplace. | 
