OpenOffice question

[Benjamin Scott]

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 8:34 AM, Susan Cragin <susancragin at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Does anyone know of any Linux application that does an
> accurate word count, so I can check?

  First we have to define what we mean by "word".  :)  I'm no expert
on the subject, but I've been told if you ask an English major, a
computer scientist, a magazine editor, and a lawyer to count the
number of words in a document, you'll get different answers from each.

  Computers typically use "a word is a sequence of non-blank
characters separated by blanks" unless special attention is paid to
the matter.

  Magazine editors reportedly have some convoluted formula they use,
apparently because what they really care about is how much space on
the page the text will consume.

-- Ben