Chinese-style measure words in English?

[nq:1]I can think of only two instances where I have heard Chinese-style Measure Words used in English The one is ... phone - "Bolts - 2 gross, Nuts - 9 dozen, Special Spanners - 2 off" Are there any other instances?[/nq]
slice of bread, piece of cake
plus all the measure-words used for such individuating of mass nouns

Though I don't know what this "off" is.

Peter T. Dani

[nq:2]I can think of only two instances where I have ... Special Spanners - 2 off" Are there any other instances?[/nq]
[nq:1]slice of bread, piece of cake plus all the measure-words used for such individuating of mass nouns Though I don't know what this "off" is.[/nq]
It's an alternative to "each".

john

[nq:2]I can think of only two instances where I have ... Special Spanners - 2 off" Are there any other instances?[/nq]
I think I've seen "100 pcs" on packs of floppy disks and the like.
[nq:1]slice of bread, piece of cake[/nq]
That's a little different, as "42 head of cattle" is just a wordy way of saying "42 cattle". OTOH, you can talk of "23 slices of bread", but not "23 bread".

[nq:2] Though I don't know what this "off" is.[/nq]
[nq:1]It's an alternative to "each".[/nq]
AFAIK nobody talks of "each" of only one entity while speaking standard English.
The nearest meaningful thing to "Special Spanners - 2 each" I can see is "Special Spanners - £2 each" as you might see on a market stall rather than a customer's order (maybe unless there are several varieties of

[nq:1] [/nq]
[nq:2]It's an alternative to "each".[/nq]
[nq:1]AFAIK nobody talks of "each" of only one entity while speaking standard English. The nearest meaningful thing to "Special Spanners ... unless there are several varieties of Special Spanners, and the customer is specifically ordering the sort that cost £2 each).[/nq]
In the United States, at least, the term "ea." is commonly u

[nq:1]Probably a back-formation of "one-off".[/nq]
Possibly not!
This use of "off" was discussed a few months ago in alt.english.usage and alt.usage.english. The thread subject was " List off items".

Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u)

[nq:2] AFAIK nobody talks of "each" of only one ... customer is specifically ordering the sort that cost £2 each).[/nq]
[nq:1]In the United States, at least, the term "ea." is commonly used as a unit of measure. It denotes a ... lot Miscellaneous buttons @ $2.00 3 c Wood screws @ $5.00 60 ft. Manila rope @ $0.46 Don Kansas City[/nq]
I've run into NMB (units code for 'number'), but only on

[nq:1] [/nq]
[nq:2]It's an alternative to "each".[/nq]
[nq:1]AFAIK nobody talks of "each" of only one entity while speaking standard English. The nearest meaningful thing to "Special Spanners ... unless there are several varieties of Special Spanners, and the customer is specifically ordering the sort that cost £2 each).[/nq]
The example given doesn't look like spoken English, unless a

[nq:1]In the United States, at least, the term "ea." is commonly used as a unit of measure.[/nq]
I guess it occurs on some online order forms, when selecting the unit from a dropdown. But otherwise, I'm not sure of any advantage of leaving the units blank.
[nq:1]It denotes a count of discreet objects as opposed to a measurement like "feet", or groupings like "pair", "pkg" or "lot".[/nq]

[nq:1]I can think of only two instances where I have heard Chinese-style Measure Words used in English The one is "head" as in "head of cattle" The other is "off".[/nq]
'Off' in my opinion does not qualify as a measure word in the Chinese sense. But some English measure words do match the Chinese concept: a pair of shoes, a group of children, a pile of books, a school of fish, a gang of thugs