Did I miss something? If two columns are 1 in lengh, and the others are 9 "some text" and 14 "Some more text", then would not the count(*) give you 2 (1 length) 1(9 lenght) and 1(14 lenght).
I did this on my database and i got
Query1
-----------
2
1
1
Query2
-----------
4
Query3
-----------
2
1
1
Confused - - - as normal
Doug