s = []
    for x in range(100):
        s = s.append(x)
    format s

In other words, this is something that holds just the same for vectors of any type.

The "philosophical" "argument" is really not relevant, since the difference between characters and "symbols" seems to be just what you want (whatever that is), while words and sentences can be represented by strings themselves. This is just a tangent that adds nothing to the question of how to represent a string.