L - Definition


L - Definition

Latin alphabet
	Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd
Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj
Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp
Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv
	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz

L is the twelfth letter of the Latin alphabet.

Contents

1 History

2 Usage

3 Alternate representations

3.1 Computing

4 Meanings for L

5 See also

History

The letter L is derived ultimately from the Semitic Lamed which stood for the phonetic value /l/ as did the Greek letter Lambda Λ (upper case) or λ (lower case), as well as the equivalent Etruscan and Latin letters. In reference, it is spelled el or ell.

Usage

In English, L can have several values, depending on whether it occurs before or after a vowel. The lateral alveolar approximant occurs before a vowel, as in LIP or PLEASE, while the velarized lateral alveolar approximant occurs in BELL and MILK. 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.

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 in Welsh, where it can appear in an initial position.

Alternate representations

Lima represents the letter L in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

In international Morse code the letter L is DitDahDitDit: � - � �

In Braille the letter L is represented as ⠇ (in Unicode), the dot pattern,

X.
X.
X.

Computing

In Unicode the capital L is codepoint U+004C and the lowercase l is U+006C.

The ASCII code for capital L is 76 and for lowercase l is 108; or in binary 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 "L" and "l" for upper and lower case respectively.

Meanings for L

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 computational complexity theory, L (complexity) is the class of all decision problems calculable in logarithmic space.
In electrical engineering, L is often the variable for inductance.
In financial securities, L is the stock symbol for Liberty Media Corporation A
In industry, L often denotes "large size".
In 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 numerals, L denotes the number fifty.
The lowercase l is sometimes used in place of the number 1 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.
In the Metric system, l or L is symbol for litre or liter, the SI base unit for volume.
In video games, L can be the abbreviation for Luigi, a Nintendo character.
When affixed to the back of a car, L often means learner.
The city of Chicago, Illinois has an elevated train called the L.