The Know-It-All - J, K, L

J

James, Jesse - The greatest bank robber of the Wild West died in 1882 after being shot by a gang member. Here's the thing, after all the dangerous deeds he did in his life, he was shot in the back at his home while adjusting a picture on the wall. Huh.

Jefferson, Thomas - Paid newspaper reporters to libel his nemesis John Adams. Who says this country has wandered away from its founding principles?

K

I found absolutely nothing of interest in the K's. That's ironic sense know-it-all begins with a k. Or maybe not. The k is silent there too.

L

The L's absolutely make up for the K's lack of intrigue. I found the L section to be full of fun facts.

Lacoste, Rene - Parisian tennis player from the 1920's who led France to 6 Davis Cup victories and won a U.S. Open and a Wimbledon Championship. His nickname: the Crocodile...or the Alligator (we'll get to that in a minute). He later founded a line of sport shirts and other apparel with his "crocodile" emblem.

Wait a minute. I grew up in the '70's and '80's. I read the preppy handbook. I wore Izod shirts. Those were alligators over my left breast, not crocodiles! Turns out, according to the woman in charge of media relations at the New York headquarters for Lacoste, it's a crocodile. It's always been a crocodile.

I had to go to Google on this one. Unfortunately, that only confused me further. Apparently, the problem was one of translation. The American press gave him the nickname "The Alligator" which was changed in French to "The Crocodile." There has been confusion ever sense. I read an article in a September 2006 issue of Business Week entitled Lacoste: The Alligator's Back in Style. However, the same article stated, "they produced the breathable knit tennis shirts Lacoste designed, complete with the crocodile logo prominently displayed on the ..."

I guess we'll never know. And that's enough about that.

language - I knew about antonyms and synonyms, but I had never heard of capitonyms - when the meaning of a word changes according to whether it starts with a capital letter - Herb and herb, Polish and polish, etc. And what about miranyms? The word in between two opposites. When you have convex and concave, the miranym is flat.

Las Vegas - Mormons were the first settlers. Religious types have not fared very well when settling towns (see Hollywood).

Lloyd Webber, Sir Andrew - Or as I call him, Pumpkin Head. Come on, the man has an absurdly large melon! Anyway, the composer of many successful musicals including Phantom of the Opera, Cats and Jesus Christ Super Star is still no Stephen Sondheim. So there.

Luciano, Lucky - Famous New York mobster of the early 20th century. He was into bootlegging, prostitution and narcotics. In 1929 he was stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick, had his throat slit from ear to ear and was left for dead on Staten Island. He shook that little incident off, killed his boss and became the capo de tutti capi (boss of all bosses). In 1936 he was busted for running his prostitution ring, but continued to rule from his prison cell.

In 1942, there was some sabotage suspected in New York harbor, a place out of which the Allies were shipping key provisions. Navy intelligence went to Luciano in prison and asked for his help. Because he still controlled the waterfront and the longshoreman's union, he gave one order and all sabotage on the docks ended. As a gift of thanks from the American government, Luciano's sentence was commuted and he was deported to Italy where he lived until 1962 when he died of a heart attack.

Lucky Luciano, a great American hero. Who knew?