For the same reasons I declined #15 (essentially, I don't want to go down the path of re-implementing behavior), I plan to decline this one as well.

This concern, however, is more nuanced. I am interested in reducing the number of unnecessary dependencies (where necessary means it's used for essential behavior). In the case of the show-newlines script, that's more of a utility function, and I doubt anyone but me has ever used it (although maybe so because I'm fairly sure I've used it to demonstrate issues so maybe others replicated my findings by using it).

I'm slightly tempted to move the dependency to an extra ([inflect] or similar) to be used only when needed by show-newlines. The main reluctance I have with such an approach is that it would require also adapting the test suite to declare that dependency.

I'd consider moving the show-newlines to another library, but it's not obvious to me what library that should be. I have learned not to create "utils" or "kitchen sink" libraries, as they are too indistinct to present a meaningful purpose.

I wonder if there's another, better arrangement of libraries that would be less complicated.

Then again, I don't want to set the precedent that jaraco.text can't use inflect when appropriate. I'd like to use inflect rather than hand-code each and every inflection across every project. And I'd like for setuptools or any other project to be able to adopt the best available implementation of any behavior that's needed.

In 1637bf4, I've moved the dependency to an extra, and released jaraco.text 4.0.

Thanks, 1637bf4 does achieve the same goal I wanted of not having to rely on runtime typing_extensions in setuptools if possible (and reducing a chain of dependencies). So I'm fine with your solution.