Jargon

While the concept of organizing a work stoppage to bring about reform has been around since Biblical times, the term "strike" originated in the 1700's, when sailors from Sunderland "struck", or removed, their topgallants, thus preventing their ships from going to sea. Or take the end of a cable, most notably the rode of an anchor, tied around a bitt (or post/capstan etc) on board the ship. This was commonly referred to as the bitter end, and when you reached it it's the end; there's no rope left. Also take sayings like "cut him/her a little slack", "learn the ropes", "three sheets to the wind", or "by the board" -- all nautical in origin.

This is just a minor and cursory glimpse, but it's pretty obvious that nautical jargon has had a sizeable impact on the English language. It does follow logically, of course; our language is British in origin, and Britain is an island. An island must depend on its fleet for its defense, its food, its global standing -- its identity-- far more than a mainland country like France or Germany would.

Our English-speaking forebears spent over a thousand years at sea, and the sea shaped their language as sure as their coastline. So what about technology? Have computers, and the IT field in general, shaped our language in a lasting way? Well, they've shaped our language; you now have "IM's", "texts", and even (blech) "tweets". You have marketing jargon like "net-centric", "cloud computing", and "web 2.0", though I'm not certain that the people who coined these terms were entirely sure of what they meant. Cyberese, with its lack of vowels and emotive punctuation is its own form of pidgen.

You have a slew of terms that have been invented for or around particular technologies or fads, but I don't know that they'll last six years, let alone six hundred. I suppose that, as technology improves and matures and the latest pop fads eventually even themselves out into a slow progression, only time will tell whether machines will have the same influence that our elegant sailing vessels once did.