
*weiß ( Doppel-s steht nur nach Kurzvokalen, nicht nach Diphthongen)

Could it also be "wie lange", with the same meaning?

Ja.

Danke.

Yes "lang" and "lange" are the same and they are interchangable, the same happens to "nah" and "nahe" (closed, near). I believe the original was "lange" and "nahe" but "lang" and "nah" are shorter and when you are speaking fast, you start eating vocals.
In German spoken language, it's also very popular to short the undeterminated articles:
Ich habe einen Kater. > Ich hab 'nen Kater. (> Ich hab 'n Kater.)
By the way, "Kater" means "hangover" ("resaca" in Spanish).
Du hast wohl 'nen Knall.. (einen > 'nen > 'n)
Er hat 'ne lange Leitung. (eine > 'ne)
etc.

Tut mir leid, hatte ich vergessen:
Du hast wohl 'nen Knall. = Du bist wohl bekloppt. (!) = Du bist wohl verrückt.
Er hat 'ne lange Leitung. = He is slow on the uptake. (he needs a little longer to understand./ He doesn't understand sth. at first.)
The origins of this idiomatic expression are found in the first years of the telephone ("Leitung" means "(telephone) line". Here I found a nice explication:
http://www.redensarten.net/Leitung.html
"Als die Telegrafie und erst recht das Telefon noch in den Kinderschuhen steckten, litt das Fernmeldewesen an einigen Kinderkrankheiten. Sowohl Qualität als auch Zuverlässigkeit der Übertragung ließen oft zu wünschen übrig. Je größer die Entfernung zwischen Absender und Empfänger war (mit entsprechend langen Leitungen), um so störanfälliger war auch die Verbindung."
Translated:
"When the telegraph and even the phone were still in their infancy, the telecommunications suffered from some teething problems. Both quality and reliability of the transmission often left much to be desired. The greater the distance between sender and receiver was (with correspondingly long lines), thus more susceptible to interference was also the connection."

Thank you very much! :)
Great!

So kann ein Satz zu einer Geschichtslektion werden... :)
Danke gleichfalls!
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This sentence was initially added as a translation of sentence #716493
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