Average word length dynamics as indicator of cultural changes in society · HackerPapers discussionshttps://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1208.6109/Collected HN comments and submissions linking this paper.enMon, 02 Nov 2026 11:16:22 GMTAverage word length dynamics as indicator of cultural changes in society — mentioned by dzdthttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13447071urn:hackerpapers:mention:1208.6109:13447071Fri, 20 Jan 2017 21:21:55 GMT<p>Somehow the article fails to mention that the speed will depend heavily on the input string: both its size and distribution of whitespace characters. Even assuming the question is for the limit of very long strings, the distribution makes a huge difference. Natural English has spaces on average every 5.1 characters [1], so using multi-character tests to speed up the case of runs of 8 or more characters without a space will probably slow it down, not speed it up! [1]https://arxiv.org/pdf/1208.6109</p><p><a href="https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1208.6109/">Paper and discussion history</a>. A mention is not an endorsement.</p>cs.CL