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All I can think is how much longer it must be to speak tweets aloud in other languages. As opposed to "at Jim Lipsey, at Gruber, at Chockenberry, at The Talk Show", now it's "chee-o-cho-la Jim Lipsey, chee-o-cho-la Gruber..."

Sounds like a mouthful already.




IIRC latin languages offset longer words by speaking generally more syllables per second. The information per time unit is roughly equal across languages. I don't think they actually realize that the word is long/awkward (or at least not to the same degree an English native speaker would realize).


That and the fact that in English there's always a little pause before, to let the listener understand you're spelling a very short word. Just listen next time someone says an email address. In italian not so much, so chiocciola is pronounced both very fast and without the need for a declarative pause. In the end it doesn't feel long at all.




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