Why is letter L used to indicate wide chars strings?

Question

For example:

wchar_t* str = L"hello";

Why "L" and no other letter?

Answer 1

MSDN claim it stands for string Literal, ie the entered string should not be translated into anything else

Answer 2

This is probably because the L suffix is used on integer constants. It appears to be a case of reuse of an existing suffix as a prefix. The other answer is that this is committee-designed. Don't ask. The third answer is what letter or other mechanism would you have chosen, and can you justify it against the L convention? Argue both for and against.

Worse than reuse of L is reuse of keywords like static and auto with new meanings. :)

By the way, this is touched upon in the Rationale for ANSI C (from back in 1989). They don't explain why L was chosen. There is just this:

An L prefix distinguishes wide string literals. A prefix (as opposed to suffix) notation was adopted so that a translator can know at the start of the processing of a long string literal whether it is dealing with ordinary or wide characters. (See §2.2.1.2.)

Section 2.2.1.2 provides no additional clues.