There is no problem when asked a question in technical mode. The problem arises from the interpretation of natural language. ‘How many r’s in the word Strawberry?’ can be interpreted in several ways:
- Properly written, how many ‘r’s does strawberry have? The listener can interpret this as a question of how to spell it and answer ‘two’.
- Count how many letters the letter ‘r’ appears. The listener may interpret this as being asked to count how many times the letter ‘r’ appears.
- How many times does the ‘r’ sound appear in the word Strawberry…?