A friend of mine told me that she would be sent to attend a course in Applied Linguistics.

“Applied Linguistics! That would be fun!” I exclaimed.

She gave me the why-not-you-do-it-for-me-instead look.

“Linguistics would help you understand how languages work,” I offered, hoping that it would excite her a little.

She gave me the why-not-you-do-it-for-me-instead look.

“Linguistics will help you understand English better,” I offered, hoping that it would appeal to her love for English.

She gave me the why-not-you-do-it-for-me-instead look.

Fast forward a few weeks, before I finally managed to find a good illustration to show why linguistics is relevant, and so I tried it out on her over coffee.

“You know in English, you can begin some words with the ‘in-’ prefix to indicate the negative right?”

“Right…”

“Like ‘inflexible’ or ‘intangible’ or ‘incorrect’.”

“Okay…”

“But how come the negative of words starting with a ‘p’ always begin with ‘im-’ instead of ‘in-’? Like ‘impolite’ or ‘impossible’ or ‘imperfect’? It’s never ‘inpolite’ or ‘inpossible’.”

I could see the gears churning in her head as she tried to find ‘p’ words that could be negated by ‘in-’ instead of ‘im-’. But of course she couldn’t.

“So do you know why?” I asked her again, barely suppressing my superior smirk.

“Well, it just is,” she declared.

“So you’re saying that you don’t know why right?” I had to force her into admitting defeat first.

“You mean there’s actually a reason?”

“That’s where linguistics comes in,” I said triumphantly, while trying not to be too obnoxious about it. “Linguistics can explain why. Actually, this applies to ‘b’ words and ‘m’ words as well, like ‘imbalance’ and ‘immature’. You won’t be able to find negative words starting with ‘inb’ or ‘inm’ or ‘inp’.”

Of course she couldn’t.

“So are you gonna explain to me why?” she said impatiently (not iMpatiently, not iNpatiently), interrupting my victory lap.

I cleared my throat in preparation for my lecture.

“This has to do with a branch of linguistics called ‘phonology‘ which deals with the sounds of a language. And this actually has to do with physics as well as psychology and perhaps even sociology.

“When you say out words beginning with ‘b’, ‘m’, or ‘p’, your lips actually start in the same position - your lips are closed together or pursed. [In linguistics, we classify these 3 consonants as bilabials, which literally means 2 (bi) lips (labia).]

“Because of that, it’s actually physically more difficult to say ‘inp-’ or ‘inb-’ - try it yourself - it feels weird right?”

She started mouthing ‘iNpossible’ and ‘iMpossible’, comparing the two.

“The ‘im-’ words actually started as ‘in-’ words, but eventually the ‘in-’ starts sounding like ‘im-’ when followed by those 3 consonants, especially when you say it fast.

“And because it’s physically easier to say ‘im-’ instead of ‘in-’, eventually with enough people saying ‘im-’, it became ‘im-’. [I think the linguists call this the regressive assimilation of consonants. Whatever.]

“It all makes sense right?” I asked her.

She had to agree.

Well, she’s still not terribly excited about attending the course, but at least she’s seeing some relevance. And now she knows why it’s iMpossible and not iNpossible.

[Of course, the conversation was reconstructed and modified. I don’t have perfect recall.]