EL336: DiRenzo

From page six of "His Master's Voice":

For convenience, certain abbreviations were used in monuments, most famously “S.P.Q.R.,” Senatus Populusque Romanus: the Senate and People of Rome. Other formulaic abbreviations evolved in private and public correspondence, such as “S.v.b.e.v.,” Si vales, bene est, valeo: If you are well, all is right; I am well. These were hardly standardized.

Yet again the transition from oral to written culture reminds me of the shift from print to digital. When reading my chosen agenda item for the first time, three prominent letters flashed in my mind.

Those letters are almost certainly the answer to the question, "what word do you overuse online?" in those goofy surveys we all used to take religiously:

L-O-L

I suppose LOL is an abbreviation which symbolizes an action moreso than it actually stands for "laughing out loud." Who says that anyway? Before LOL came about I never typed out the phrase it stands for. "Haha" is much more effective, I'd say.

Anyway...

One of my other thoughts came near the beginning of this piece, where DiRenzo states that proficient scribes were considered to be so precious that they were eligible for life-long government jobs. No matter what point in history, government jobs were and are considered extremely respectable in every society. How I wish I could become employed by the White House simply because I can write. Heck, I'd even provide my own paper and pen (rollerball, not reed, please).