Benchmark: running bare, grt, st for at least 3 CPU seconds...
      bare:  6 wallclock secs ( 3.08 usr +  0.01 sys =  3.09 CPU) @ 1279584.47/s (n=3953916)
       grt:  8 wallclock secs ( 3.11 usr +  0.00 sys =  3.11 CPU) @ 1118145.66/s (n=3477433)
        st:  7 wallclock secs ( 3.05 usr +  0.01 sys =  3.06 CPU) @ 1146781.05/s (n=3509150)
          Rate  grt   st bare
grt  1118146/s   --  -2% -13%
st   1146781/s   3%   -- -10%
bare 1279584/s  14%  12%   --

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

use Benchmark qw(cmpthese);

my @words = qw(The time has come the Walrus said to speak of many things);

cmpthese(-3, {
    st => q{
         my @sorted =
            map { $_->[1] }
            sort { $a->[0] <=> $a->[0] || $a->[1] cmp $b->[1] }
            map { [ tr/eE/eE/, $_ ] } @words;
    },
    grt => q{
        my @sorted =
            map { substr($_, 4) }
            sort
            map { pack("LA*", tr/eE/eE/, $_) } @words;
    },
    bare => q{
        my @sorted = sort { ($a =~ tr/eE/eE/) <=> ($b =~ tr/eE/eE/) } @words;
    }
});

##</code><code>##

This is perl, v5.8.0 built for i686-linux