I'd actually love something like that, mostly because differentiating between "str" and "String" in, uh, speech can be pretty annoying. They both sound the same

I'd actually love something like that, mostly because differentiating between "str" and "String" in, uh, speech can be pretty annoying. They both sound the same! :) I've taken to calling "String" "owned string" but that's a little unwieldly and not quite suited for complete Rust beginners who don't know the concept of ownership yet. Same with "string reference" for "str".