*{AnyEvent::IRC::Util::split_unicode_string} = sub {
  my ($enc, $str, $maxlen) = @_;

  return $str unless length (encode ($enc, $str)) > $maxlen;

  my $cur_out = '';
  my $word = '';
  my @lines;

  while (length ($str) > 0) {
    $word .= substr $str, 0, 1, '';

    if ($word =~ /\w\W$/ || length ($str) == 0) {

      if (length (encode ($enc, $cur_out.$word)) > $maxlen) {
        push @lines, $cur_out;
        $cur_out = '';
      }

      $cur_out .= $word;
      $word = '';
    }
  }

  push @lines, $cur_out if length ($cur_out);
};