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Reading aloud from a graph theory textbook, I encountered the letter ℓ. I assume that most people simply pronounce it 'ell'. However, is there any other way to pronounce it?

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\mathfrak{l} should do the job – user9413 Jul 18 '11 at 14:37
2  
No, just $\ell$ \ell. That is the ell. – Jonas Teuwen Jul 18 '11 at 14:38
If you must distinguish it from other ells, you can specify it is a lower-case, curly ell. But like Jonas said, it is just an ell. – Willie Wong♦ Jul 18 '11 at 14:51

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up vote 4 down vote accepted

For the space $\ell^p$, I say "little ell-p." That is what the Banach Space Cadets at the University of Texas called in when I was a grad student.

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Are there other chapters of the Banach Space Cadets elsewhere? Where do I sign up? Would I get to travel to C-stars? :) – Zev Chonoles♦ Jul 18 '11 at 15:06
$\ell$-pun-o. I think this transformation could be degenerate. – ncmathsadist Jul 18 '11 at 22:54
up vote 6 down vote

I suppose you could pronounce it any way you like, but why would you want to?

The symbol $\ell$ is just a variant form of the lowercase L, drawn in a script style to distinguish it from the number 1 and uppercase I. I guess you could call it "script ell" if you want to be specific.

(BTW, the official name of the Unicode "letterlike symbol" character ℓ (U+2113) is "Script Small L".)

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