Legitimacy of the word "imput"

Question

I see Merriam Webster defines "imput" as a "variant of input" but no other dictionaries have entries (unless you count the Urban Dictionary's "The usual idiotic misspelling of the word input").

Google Ngram has entries for "imput" in books, including a spike in the late 1970s, but even that spike is of trivial volume (<0.00001%), around where you'd expect typos to live.

I see a reference to "imput" in this answer to a different question, noting:

the phoneme /n/ is also highly unstable in English. It tends to change its place of articulation according to the following consonant. For this reason we see words like input being pronounced imput and so forth. This is called anticipatory assimilation

My spouse, a professor in STEM, is seeing this spelling in a few students' works, though this is from a text field notably lacking spellcheck.

Are people starting to actually use "imput" as a valid word, or is it still a typo?
(In other words, am I bucking a trend, yelling at kids to get off my lawn?)

Answer 1

It is a typo. Not even a site like Urban Dictionary gives it any legitimacy. The only dictionary I could find that mentions "imput" is Merriam Webster, but the context for that is that the editors were seemingly hesitant to make prescriptive rulings against many expressions that are commonly seen as "nonstandard".

For context, when typing, it's an easy mistake to make because the m/n keys are right next to each other (at least on any modern English-language keyboard I've seen) and both letters look (and sound) similar, especially in the middle of a word.

In Google Books, every hit I was able to look at turned out to be an OCR error. There are also a few hits in COCA for this "spelling". Some of these occurrences are in comments and other contexts where English is fast and loose (as demonstrated by other aspects of the writing, such as lowercasing the pronoun i). And in some of the occurrences, the context even shows that this is not how the author usually spells input:

More important, the company acts on the imput. ... Knowledge is so specialized and information so widely dispersed in the contemporary corporation that everyone's input is needed. — Fortune Magazine

and

An SEO must follow any imput given to him by human beings, except where such inputs would conflict... — Moz.com comment

and

... being the result of the Butterfly effect, or the high sensitivity to imput conditions. However there are many systems that have high input sensitivity... — Schneier.com comment

Answer 2

Imput is an error. It is a individual phonetic representation.

I checked the OED, and the word imput appears but only within examples of other words, with the meaning of to install (a person in a dwelling or object in a place) as the converse of "output" (to evict or to remove) and is obsolete Scottish English.

(From "output") 1563 MS Rec. Aberdeen V. 25 To imput and outpute the tenentis. [to install and evict tenants]

(from the entry on "remove") 1580 Dundee Charters (1880) No. 71 ...quhilkis thai ar to imput and place at the entrie of the said rever. [which they are to install and place at the entrance to the said river.]

How often it is [mis]used is a reflection of local or demographic educational standards.

Answer 3

Are people starting to actually use "imput" as a valid word, or is it still a typo? (In other words, am I bucking a trend, yelling at kids to get off my lawn?)

Yes, yes and yes.

Welcome to the ever-changing landscape of language.

The word input is a simple compound word of "in" and "put" and according to the Online Etymology Dictionary it dates from 1753 referring to cash put into a collection, from 1902 as the stuff that goes into a machine and from 1948 as the stuff that goes into a computer.

In spoken English, there is little to no difference between the 'n' sound in input and the 'm' sound in imput, so, for a person who has learnt the word from hearing rather than reading, it is simple confusion.

However, that is often how words morph. If enough people use it it becomes a 'variant', if more people use it they become 'alternatives' and if most people use it the original becomes 'archaic'.

According to the people at Miriam-Webster it’s become a variant, which suggests that the spelling is in common usage in North America and a valid part of that version of English. I have been unable to find it in any of the major UK or Australian dictionaries indicating that it would be considered a misspelling in those versions.

English is a living language and, like all living things, it throws up mutations. Most die, some become viable competitors and a tiny percentage replace what came before. That's why dictionaries are in constant revision.

If your spouse was an English teacher they could use this as a learning experience. However, as a STEM teacher its not really in their engine room.