* American English could be considered one such refactoring. Some common changes include: removing vowels without sound (e.g. "labour" => "labor", "colour" => "color"), removing duplicate letters ("programme" => "program"), and reversing some "re" words (e.g. "theatre" => "theater"). More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_refo... * The printing press introduced some too. The best example I can think of is the general removal of diaereses (e.g. "microörganism" => "microorganism"). Though I'm less certain of this one.
I'm a little surprised none of the gamer speak refactorings haven't made their way into the written word in a serious way, especially given their prevalence in such a large portion of the population.