1st April: The Letter L

The first L-Day was on this date in 1945. 10 things you might not know about the letter L.

1. L-Day was originally "Landing Day"- 1 April 1945, the day Operation Iceberg (the invasion of Okinawa) began.
2. It is the 12th letter of the English alphabet. It is often silent, in worlds like walk, talk, could, would, palm and psalm.
3. The letter L evolved from the Phoenician letter Lamedh and the Greek Lambda. Lamedh itself may have evolved from a pictogram of an ox goad, cattle prod or shepherd's crook.
4. The Roman numeral Ⅼ represents the number 50.
5. In the NATO phonetic alphabet, it's Lima. In Morse Code, it's ·–··.
6. A speech impediment which means a person cannot pronounce the letter "L" properly is known as lambdacism.
7. A large red L on a white background displayed on a UK road vehicle means the driver is under instruction - a "learner". Tearing up L plates is a common symbol to show that someone has passed their driving test. They are sometimes worn as a joke by the bride to be on a hen night.
8. A capital L is the currency sign for the Albanian lek and the Honduran lempira. The pound sign (£) is based on a handwritten capital L.
9. The problem with L is that the lowercase l can be hard to distinguish between an uppercase "I" or a number "1". Fonts used for things like road signs tend to use fonts where the lower case "l" curves to the right to prevent confusion.
10. Forming a letter L with the hand, particularly when raised to the forehead, is an insulting gesture meaning "Loser".

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