An even more extreme example comes in how English speakers smooth out “I do not know.” We’ve been saying it out loud for generations, long enough for it to have worn down to “I don’t know,” “I dunno,” and even a simple triplet “uh-huh-uh” or “mm-hm-mm” to the low-high-low melody of “I dunno.” “I dunno” is easier to articulate than “I do not know,” but it’s not really much shorter to write (even though we sometimes write it to evoke speech). The melodic triple hum is exceedingly easy to produce (you can even do it with a mouthful of sandwich) but not efficient at all in writing, requiring a
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