Initial Backport of string changes for 2.3 release #18447

Job	Run time
Linux-32-bit	20m 24s
Linux-Musl	17m 41s
python-dev (macOS-13)	38m 49s
python-dev (macOS-14)	26m 30s
python-dev (ubuntu-22.04)	30m 27s
python-dev (windows-latest)	31m 57s
macos-13 actions-311.yaml	35m 42s
macos-13 actions-312.yaml	49m 31s
macos-13 actions-39.yaml	50m 43s
macos-13 actions-310.yaml	51m 36s
macos-14 actions-310.yaml	28m 19s
macos-14 actions-311.yaml	26m 43s
macos-14 actions-312.yaml	29m 47s
macos-14 actions-39.yaml	24m 57s
windows-latest actions-311.yaml	51m 4s
windows-latest actions-312.yaml	55m 0s
windows-latest actions-310.yaml	49m 22s
windows-latest actions-39.yaml	38m 50s
ubuntu-latest actions-310.yaml	59m 44s
Copy-on-Write 3.10 (warnings)	35m 36s
Copy-on-Write 3.10	37m 8s
Future infer strings (without pyarrow)	1h 1m 3s
ubuntu-latest actions-311.yaml	56m 21s
Locale: zh_CN	36m 39s
Copy-on-Write 3.11	35m 48s
Copy-on-Write 3.11 (warnings)	36m 7s
Downstream Compat	6m 37s
Locale: it_IT	36m 56s
Numpy Dev	23m 52s
Pyarrow Nightly	25m 36s
Future infer strings	57m 46s
Copy-on-Write 3.12	44m 6s
ubuntu-latest actions-312.yaml	44m 31s
ubuntu-latest actions-39.yaml	50m 43s
Copy-on-Write 3.9 (warnings)	31m 26s
Copy-on-Write 3.9	30m 21s
Minimum Versions	30m 9s
Pypy	8m 24s
	23h 26m 15s

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