note Sartak <p>Interestingly, you used the <code><=></code> operator to compare words. When a word (<code>[a-zA-Z]+</code>) is numified, it becomes a numeric 0. So the results you're seeing are probably from <code>{0 <=> 0}</code> being far faster than <code>{'mountain' cmp 'mountable'}</code>.</p> <p>Perhaps a better test would be the use of <code><=></code> and <code>cmp</code> on numbers?</p> 8745 8745