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Are there alternatives to "is of the opinion ..." in the following sentence?
He is of the opinion that there is a something upon which we depend.
Because I am not an English native speaker, the expressions like "is of + noun" are ambiguous a little bit.
The idiom "is of the opinion that" is fairly well entrenched. Using it would not be ambiguous.
That said, I believe it's wordy.
Indeed, I'm of the opinion that it would better to simply say, "he thinks that", "he believes that" or "his opinion is". I think that works better. It is also my opinion that wordiness is unnecessary. I believe it's better to avoid the passive.
See what I did there?
He is of the opinion that there is a something upon which we depend.
In his opinion there is something upon which we depend.
"In my opinion" has pretty widespread usage.
This previous discussion covers the topic of "in my opinion", and may be of interest to you. "I think ..." or "In my opinion..." or "From my point of view..."
