"The elephant eats the men's rice."

[mhiraishi]

Why is it that some words use " L' " instead of "le"? (ex: l'homme, l'alcool)

[OliveKalamata]

This is because the first syllable of each of those words (homme, alcool) has a vowel sound. "Homme" has a silent h. See #4 here: http://french.about.com/od/mistakes/a/beginning.htm