How about not slurping? 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $count = 0;
$count += /\band\b/g while <>;
print "$count\n";

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Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re^2: How to count the total number of times the word 'the' and 'and' occur in 5 files i selected? by Aristotle
in thread How to count the total number of times the word 'the' and 'and' occur in 5 files i selected? by lingling

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