[originaltext] That little "a" with a circle curling around it, which is fou

That little "a" with a circle curling around it, which is found in e-mail addresses, is most commonly referred to as the "at" symbol. (29)Surprisingly though, there is no official, universal name for this sign. There are dozens of strange terms to describe the @ symbol. Before it became the standard symbol for electronic mail, the @ symbol was used to represent the cost or weight of something. For instance, if you purchased six apples, you might write it as six apples @ $ 1.10 each. With the introduction of e-mail came the popularity of the @ symbol. (30)The @ symbol or the "at sign" separates a person’s online user name from his mail server address. Its widespread use on the Internet made it necessary to put this symbol on keyboards in other countries that have never seen or used the symbol before. History tells us that the @ symbol stemmed from the tired hands of the medieval monks. During the Middle Ages before the invention of printing presses, every letter of a word had to be transcribed by hand for each copy of a published book. The monks that performed these long, tedious copying duties looked for ways to reduce the number of individual strokes per word for common words. (31)Although the word "at" is quite short to begin with, it was such a common enough word in texts and documents that medieval monks thought it would be quicker and easier to shorten the word "at" even more. As a result, the monks looped the "t" around the "a" and created it into a circle—eliminating two strokes of the pen.
29. What can we learn about the name of the symbol according to the passage?
30. What is the function of @ on the Internet?
31. Why was the @ symbol created according to the passage?