diff --git a/spacy/pipeline/attributeruler.py b/spacy/pipeline/attributeruler.py
index 1dc2a10dd..4243ebcfb 100644
--- a/spacy/pipeline/attributeruler.py
+++ b/spacy/pipeline/attributeruler.py
@@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ class AttributeRuler(Pipe):
         matches = self.matcher(doc, allow_missing=True)
         # Sort by the attribute ID, so that later rules have precendence
         matches = [
-            (_parse_key(self.vocab.strings[m_id]), m_id, s, e)
+            (int(self.vocab.strings[m_id]), m_id, s, e)
             for m_id, s, e in matches
         ]
         matches.sort()
@@ -184,7 +184,7 @@ class AttributeRuler(Pipe):
         """
         # We need to make a string here, because otherwise the ID we pass back
         # will be interpreted as the hash of a string, rather than an ordinal.
-        key = _make_key(len(self.attrs))
+        key = str(len(self.attrs))
         self.matcher.add(self.vocab.strings.add(key), patterns)
         self._attrs_unnormed.append(attrs)
         attrs = normalize_token_attrs(self.vocab, attrs)
@@ -209,7 +209,7 @@ class AttributeRuler(Pipe):
         all_patterns = []
         for i in range(len(self.attrs)):
             p = {}
-            p["patterns"] = self.matcher.get(_make_key(i))[1]
+            p["patterns"] = self.matcher.get(str(i))[1]
             p["attrs"] = self._attrs_unnormed[i]
             p["index"] = self.indices[i]
             all_patterns.append(p)
@@ -313,12 +313,6 @@ class AttributeRuler(Pipe):
 
         return self
 
-def _make_key(n_attr):
-    return f"attr_rule_{n_attr}"
-
-def _parse_key(key):
-    return int(key.rsplit("_", 1)[1])
-
 
 def _split_morph_attrs(attrs):
     """Split entries from a tag map or morph rules dict into to two dicts, one