title: Remove repeating characters from words
body: <p>I was wondering what is the best way to convert something like "haaaaapppppyyy" to "haappyy". </p>
  
  <p>Basically, when parsing slang, people sometimes repeat characters for added emphasis. </p>
  
  <p>I was wondering what the best way to do this is? Using <code>set()</code> doesn't work because the order of the letters is obviously important.</p>
  
  <p>Any ideas? I'm using Python + nltk. </p>