diff --git a/lib/ankusa/extensions.rb b/lib/ankusa/extensions.rb
index 8704bfc..14b645e 100644
--- a/lib/ankusa/extensions.rb
+++ b/lib/ankusa/extensions.rb
@@ -1,8 +1,4 @@
 class String
-  def numeric?
-    true if Float(self) rescue false
-  end
-  
   def to_ascii
     encode("UTF-8", :invalid => :replace, :undef => :replace, :replace => "").force_encoding('UTF-8') rescue ""
   end
diff --git a/lib/ankusa/hasher.rb b/lib/ankusa/hasher.rb
index aea9b0f..d9ec56f 100644
--- a/lib/ankusa/hasher.rb
+++ b/lib/ankusa/hasher.rb
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 
 module Ankusa
 
-  class TextHash < Hash 
+  class TextHash < Hash
     attr_reader :word_count
 
     def initialize(text=nil, stem=true)
@@ -19,14 +19,14 @@ def self.atomize(text)
 
     # word should be only alphanum chars at this point
     def self.valid_word?(word)
-      not (Ankusa::STOPWORDS.include?(word) || word.length < 3 || word.numeric?)
+      not (Ankusa::STOPWORDS.include?(word) || word.length < 3 || self.numeric_word?(word))
     end
 
     def add_text(text)
       if text.instance_of? Array
         text.each { |t| add_text t }
       else
-        # replace dashes with spaces, then get rid of non-word/non-space characters, 
+        # replace dashes with spaces, then get rid of non-word/non-space characters,
         # then split by space to get words
         words = TextHash.atomize text
         words.each { |word| add_word(word) if TextHash.valid_word?(word) }
@@ -42,6 +42,15 @@ def add_word(word)
       key = word.intern
       store key, fetch(key, 0)+1
     end
+
+    # Due to the character filtering that takes place in atomisation
+    # this method should never received something that could be a
+    # negative number, float etc.
+    # Therefore we can dispense with the SLOW Float(word) method and
+    # just do a simple regex.
+    def self.numeric_word?(word)
+      word.match(/[\d]+/)
+    end
   end
 
 end
diff --git a/test/hasher_test.rb b/test/hasher_test.rb
index 7854783..52f9704 100644
--- a/test/hasher_test.rb
+++ b/test/hasher_test.rb
@@ -1,13 +1,12 @@
 require File.join File.dirname(__FILE__), 'helper'
 
 class HasherTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
-  def setup
+
+  def test_stemming
     string = "Words word a the at fish fishing fishes? /^/  The at a of! @#$!"
     @text_hash = Ankusa::TextHash.new string
     @array = Ankusa::TextHash.new [string]
-  end
 
-  def test_stemming
     assert_equal @text_hash.length, 2
     assert_equal @text_hash.word_count, 5
 
@@ -15,11 +14,19 @@ def test_stemming
     assert_equal @array.word_count, 5
   end
 
+  def test_atomization
+    string = "Hello 123,45 My-name! is Robot14 123.45 @#$!"
+    @array = Ankusa::TextHash.atomize string
+
+    assert_equal %w{hello 123 45 my name is robot14 123 45}, @array
+  end
+
   def test_valid_word
-    assert (not Ankusa::TextHash.valid_word? "accordingly")
-    assert (not Ankusa::TextHash.valid_word? "appropriate")
-    assert Ankusa::TextHash.valid_word? "^*&@"
-    assert Ankusa::TextHash.valid_word? "mother"
-    assert (not Ankusa::TextHash.valid_word? "21675")
+    assert !Ankusa::TextHash.valid_word?("accordingly")
+    assert !Ankusa::TextHash.valid_word?("appropriate")
+    assert Ankusa::TextHash.valid_word?("^*&@")
+    assert Ankusa::TextHash.valid_word?("mother")
+    assert !Ankusa::TextHash.valid_word?("21675")
+    assert !Ankusa::TextHash.valid_word?("00000")
   end
 end