Fore! (I couldn't resist :) 
#!/usr/bin/perl -ln
$t+=@a=/\w+/g;END{print$t}

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47 bytes, counting the shebang and two LFs; 26 bytes for the one-line script by itself. And it gives with the correct answer, too (48 "words" for the input text in question).

In reply to Re^2: word count by graff
in thread word count by targetsmart

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