Apart from the trivial examples of new words being added to dictionaries (Internet, email, etc.), do you have examples of new technologies influencing the way we speak ?
Back in the 90s, I remember a guy seated next to me saying over his then cutting-edge mobile phone “… I can’t tell you right now because I’m on the bus.”
It was not the first time I’d heard a sentence like this in the previous couple of years and I remember finding it amusing that, before mobile phones, no one would have said “I’m on the bus” unless they were drunk or insane. We can all see you’re on the bus, man !
So, a perfectly grammatical sentence that had always been theoretically “utterable” but was pragmatically pointless became totally acceptable thanks to a new technology.
Can you think of other examples of the same phenomenon ?
One that I find particularly fascinating is the word “pwn”. Normally, when a new word is coined, it starts out being spoken, before eventually making its way into print, at which point the writer needs to figure out how it’s spelled. And so you get uncertainties like whether a bandana worn over one’s hair is a “do-rag” or a “du-rag”.
“Pwn”, though, was born in text, with one single unambiguous spelling, but it was in active use for a long time before anyone settled in on agreeing how it was pronounced.
I’m not sure it’s etiquette and concern for fellow bus passengers so much as “I’m unwilling to speak certain things where potentially hostile actors may overhear me and use the info to my detriment.”
It’s not the only word that comes from (mispelled) text before going to speech. Filk and teh did the same (and there’s probably other examples), although I’ll grant you they didn’t have the uncertainty of pronunciation.