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wc -w # If you need to just count words in some place that doesn't do it for you, you can usually just run wc -w, paste the *plain ascii text* into the terminal and press Ctrl-D when done. It will print a word count. Google Docs couldn't do this for me on a selected portion. :P
@Nervengift Ah yes thanks. I noted that over in birdland.
@climagic to count selected without pasting:
xsel -o | wc -w