Now I don't use twitter's API, so I have no clue as to their conventions, but when I saw, in the documentation you qouted, the phrase the "equivalent of", I re

Now I don't use twitter's API, so I have no clue as to their conventions, but when I saw, in the documentation you qouted, the phrase the "equivalent of", I read this as the "raw data we used to produce" , and not the "exact string you see." Clearly I should have read it the other way - but I bet a lot of people will read it like I did.