@@ -55,10 +55,10 @@ Python 3.x)::
     'Bei Jing '
 
 For use cases where most strings passed are ASCII and only some occassional
-non-ASCII ones, use the `unidecode_fast` function::
+non-ASCII ones, use the `unidecode_expect_ascii` function::
 
-    >>> from unidecode import unidecode_fast
-    >>> unidecode_fast(u'Hello world!')
+    >>> from unidecode import unidecode_expect_ascii
+    >>> unidecode_expect_ascii(u'Hello world!')
     'Hello world!'
 
 This function about five times faster if the string only contains ASCII
 
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 # vim:ts=4 sw=4 expandtab softtabstop=4
 import unittest
 import sys
-from unidecode import unidecode, unidecode_fast
+from unidecode import unidecode, unidecode_expect_ascii
 import warnings
 
 # workaround for Python < 2.7
@@ -505,11 +505,11 @@ def test_unicode_text_converter(self):
 
 class TestUnidecodeFast(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_ascii_fast(self):
-        out = unidecode_fast(_u('Hello, World!'))
+        out = unidecode_expect_ascii(_u('Hello, World!'))
         self.assertEqual(out, 'Hello, World!')
 
     def test_nonascii_fast(self):
-        out = unidecode_fast(_u('příliš žluťoučký kůň pěl ďábelské ódy'))
+        out = unidecode_expect_ascii(_u('příliš žluťoučký kůň pěl ďábelské ódy'))
         self.assertEqual(out, 'prilis zlutoucky kun pel dabelske ody')
 
 
 
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ def _warn_if_not_unicode(string):
                         RuntimeWarning, 2)
 
 
-def unidecode_fast(string):
+def unidecode_expect_ascii(string):
     """
     Try to transliterate using ASCII codec. If it fails, fall back to
     transliteration using the character tables.
@@ -41,20 +41,24 @@ def unidecode_fast(string):
     try:
         bytestring = string.encode('ASCII')
     except UnicodeEncodeError:
-        return unidecode(string)
+        return _unidecode(string)
     if version_info[0] >= 3:
         return string
     else:
         return bytestring
 
+def unidecode_expect_nonascii(string):
+    _warn_if_not_unicode(string)
+    return _unidecode(string)
+
+unidecode = unidecode_expect_ascii
 
-def unidecode(string):
+def _unidecode(string):
     """Transliterate an Unicode object into an ASCII string
 
     >>> unidecode(u"\u5317\u4EB0")
     "Bei Jing "
     """
-    _warn_if_not_unicode(string)
 
     retval = []