Dictionary of Meaning
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L
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L is the twelfth letter of the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is el.
History
The letter L' is derived ultimately from the Semitic (crook/goad) which stood for the phonetic value '/l/'. This originally may have been based on an Egyptian hieroglyph that was adapted by Semites for alphabetic purposes. The Greek letter Lambda Λ (upper case) or λ (lower case), as well as the equivalent Etruscan and Latin letters, have the same sound as the Semitic letter. In reference, it is spelled 'el' or 'ell.
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! Egyptian hieroglyph `wt
! Proto-Semitic L
! Phoenician L
! Etruscan L
! Greek L
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Usage
In English, L can have several values, depending on whether it occurs before or after a vowel. The alveolar lateral approximant ( International Phonetic Alphabet ) occurs in bell and milk (see Dark L). This velarization does not occur in many European languages that use L, and is also a factor making L difficult to pronounce for users of languages such as Japanese or Chinese that either lack or have different values for L. In English, L is silent in words such as walk or calm.
L can occur before almost any plosive, fricative, or affricate in English. Common digraphs include LL, which has a value identical to L in English but has the separate value voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (IPA ) in Welsh, where it can appear in an initial position.
A palatalised L (IPA ) occurs in many languages, and is represented by GL in Italian, LL in certain varieties of Spanish, LH in Portuguese and Ä» in Latvian.
Codes for computing
{{Letter
|NATO=Lima
|Morse=·–··
|B1=â—?
|B2=â—?
|B3=â—?
|B4=â—‹
|B5=â—‹
|B6=â—‹
}}
In Unicode the capital L is codepoint U+004C and the lowercase l is U+006C. In some fonts, a lowercase l may be difficult to distinguish from a 1(one), a more stylized version based on the handwritten & - 8467; is sometimes used - this is often used as a suffix on a number to represent litres. Sometimes, capital I is also hard to distinguish from a lowercase l as well, as many fonts use a vertical bar for both of these characters. Its codepoint is U +2113 and its numeric character reference is "&".
The ASCII code for capital L is 76 and for lowercase l is 108; or in Binary numeral system 01001100 and 01101100, correspondingly.
The EBCDIC code for capital L is 211 and for lowercase l is 147.
The numeric character references in HTML and XML are " &" and " &" for upper and lower case respectively.
Things named "L"
- In computational complexity theory, L (complexity) is the class of all decision problems calculable in logarithmic space.
- A mathematical adventure game was made for the BBC Micro called "L"
- In set theory, denotes Gödel's constructible universe.
- The city of Chicago, Illinois has an elevated train called the Chicago 'L'|L.
- L is a novel by the Norwegian author Erlend Loe.
- In the movie Men in Black (movie)|Men In Black, agent "L" (as in "Elle", French for "She") is the lead female character.
- In the manga Death Note, L is the alias of a brilliant, eccentric detective investigating the 'Kira' murders.
- L (album) is a record alubum, audio cassette and 8-track by L (album) is a record alubum, audio cassette and 8-track by Lol_Creme and Kevin Godley.
- L is a slang term for blunt in marijuana counterculture and in the hip-hop sub-culture.
Abbreviation or symbol "L"
- In anatomy, L means lumbar, as in L-spine, or written with a number (from L1 to L5) refers to a numbered lumbar vertebra or lumbar spinal nerve.
- In astronomy,
L stands for a June 1 through 15 discovery, in the provisional designation of a comet (e.g. C/1845 L1, the Great June Comet of 1845) or asteroid (e.g. (3988) 1986 LA).
- In Optical isomerism, L means levorotatory
- - Molecules with L stereochemistry conformation are oriented in decreasing importance going anti-clockwise around a chiral carbon
- - The human body only uses L amino acids. Bacteria and other prokaryotes use D amino acids and are targeted by antibiotics.
- In biochemistry, L is the symbol for leucine.
- In botany, L. is the standard abbreviation for Carolus Linnaeus when cited as the author of plants he described, as in e.g. Stone Pine Pinus pinea L.
- In electrical engineering, L is often the variable for inductance.
- In physics, L is used to represent angular momentum.
- In etymology and languages, L. is the abbreviation for Latin.
- In finance, L is the New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol for Liberty Media Corporation A
- In industry, L often denotes "large size".
- In List of international license plate codes|international licence plate codes, L stands for Luxembourg.
- In navigation, L denotes the relative direction "left"; see left and right.
- As the first letter of a postal code,
- - In Canada, L stands for Central Ontario.
- - In the United Kingdom, L stands for Liverpool.
- In Roman naming convention, L is the abbreviation for the praenomen Lucius.
- In the SI system, l, â„“ or L is the symbol for the litre, a unit of volume or capacity.
- In Computer and video games|video games, L is the symbol for Luigi, a Nintendo character.
- When affixed to the back of a car, L often means learner.
- L is an IRC-service (bot on the popular IRC-network QuakeNet.
- In the 1980's, placing ones right hand on the forehead in the shape of an L means calling them a loser.
- An L in cannabis culture is a certain way of rolling a joint using two skins, in the shape of an L.
Alternate meanings for the symbol "L"
- In Roman numerals, L denotes the number 50 (number) (there are also separate 50 (number) (there are also separate Unicode characters for this number, 0x216C "â…¬" and 0x217C "â…¼").
- The lowercase l is sometimes used in place of the number 1 (number) in typewritten text. Some 1 (number) in typewritten text. Some typewriters_did_not even have a key for the numeral, so a number of people have retained the habit even in the computer age.
See also
L with stroke, L with stroke, Ll,_ £
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