Abstract The accounting profession has claimed squatters rights to certain key words and phrases which have become a basic part of the accountant's vocabulary. Accountants express their views with an economy of words. They summarize the scope of the audit and state their opinion within the framework of a few paragraphs which usually contain three words of concentrated significance "in our opinion." Every public accountant has undoubtedly experienced in his years of practice each of the various phases of knowledge. Nescience is at times unavoidable, is subject to correction, and is often irrelevant to professional responsibility. Most accountants would readily admit that the presence of privative ignorance has no basis for justification in the professional man where it can be remedied. It is possible to conceive of situations where the state of doubt may persist and remain unresolved in spite of the best efforts of the conscientious accountant. The area of knowledge in which most accountants operate after they have concluded their examination is probably the sphere of opinion.
Brother la Salle (1958) studied this question.