4Ct.

"Ct." stands for count.

Thank you.

But what does "4 count" mean?

"4 count", indicates the number of items. In this case, there are 4 ears of corn.

It means that if you count the items (in this case ears of corn) you will find that there are four.

Thank you all.


Is count a noun here?
Is "4 counts" ungrammatical?

4 count is idiomatic.

4 counts is not correct.

Der EES BUT VUN COUNT, Bleh Bleh Blehhhh.

It's like "6-pack"
(minus 2)

It’s just an abbreviation and not much should be made of it. A lot of items that are packaged together, like rolls of toilet paper, paper towels, cotton balls, etc will say 6 ct, 12 ct, 100 ct. it’s just so the consumer knows how many items are in the package. Grammar isn’t an issue.

It's a noun.

"4 counts" is ungrammatical.

Thanks for that, I was as much as a loss as the OP. This is a feature of American English, I've never come across it before.

I've never seen it either.

Good, it's not just me. It does seem rather redundant, what's wrong with a plain and simple 4?

So if you were buying a bag of candy, or marbles, or those dental floss thingies, in the UK it would just say somewhere on the bag 25, or 50 or something? It wouldn’t say 50 items or some other indicator?

I’m looking at a package of nail files and container of toothpicks I bought in Mexico, and they say, respectively, 10 and 250 piezas, or pieces.

It seems in Mexico they use the word piece. In the US for some reason we use the word count. As in there is a count of 100 in this box.

Sure I guess if you think about it it may sound awkward-ish, but I guess like a lot of things in various countries, certain words came into use at a particular time, and it’s just continued as the norm.

I suppose if I was at a grocery store in London I’d find products packaged in either a different amount than I’m used to, or using some phrase or word on the package that might make me pause for a second. But I’d then figure that’s just how it came to be through long term use that’s been accepted by the general population.

Sorry, just thought of something else. Might be particular to my country.

It would be common enough here for someone to say “ I did a count of those pieces of x, and there are 34” or saying you did a headcount or similar.

Sure, there’s plenty of other ways those things could be expressed in the US, and is. But basically, meh.

If I was buying a bag of sweets, (this is the UK, no candy over here,) I'd buy them by weight. Floss and marbles tend to be prepackaged. When I was a kid I bought a big bag of marbles that said "Over 50 marbles" and floss would have a distance in metres.

When I used to smoke I'd ask for twenty cigarettes, or ten if I was skint, not a packet or pack.

Most things are sold by weight or number.

Prepackaged corn in UK supermarkets.

oooooh, that last bag looks skeevy. Corn shoulbe be eaten as fresh as you can get, course corn is not the healthiest of veggies.