Dear List,

I’m sure it can be an advantage to write in a foreign language, and there can be advantages in writing in a foreign language and one could go on about the advantages of writing in a foreign language. But could I raise an odd prepositional use by Nabokov himself in Lolita: ‘in result of’. That’s not American idiom, is it? UK English would say ‘as a result of’. Is there a shadow of another language there?

Penny.