# When Technology Changes Language **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 15, 2022, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-technology-changes-language/969692 "2022-08-15T13:24:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 1
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2022, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-technology-changes-language/969692/1 "2022-08-15T13:24:26Z")
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics) pointless became totally acceptable thanks to a new technology. Can you think of other examples of the same phenomenon ? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-technology-changes-language/969692)._