With letters....

I was thinking yesterday about people who had left school without much to show for it. Then I got thinking of people who left with something to show be it at 16 or 18. Then I got to thinking about people with bachelors and masters degrees, then people with doctrates. So of course we come to the title of this post 'with letters' which is obviously an allusion to degrees??? Well actually no. It is a medieval term, meaning somebody who can read and write. Funny how expressions can mean different things in different generations. I guess the bar/posts have to change/move to perpetuate the hegemony.