One thing, I thought the definition of a "word" is something like 6 characters, so a really long word could be considered 2+ "words". It seems like your definition of a word is a set of strings separated by a space. Is this intentional?
I'm old school, so when I learned to type, I learned it on an actual typewriter. When we had to fix mistakes, we needed to use good old fashioned liquid paper.
So doing things like calculating your typing speed in words per minute was done where 5 characters was considered a "word". So when I was in school, when the teacher or prof said to hand in a 2000 word essay, it would be based on where a word was considered 5 or 6 characters, regardless of how many actual words there were.
http://www.speedtypingonline.com/typing-equations
Interestingly, I just checked on MS Word, and they consider a word to be anything with a space inbetween, so I guess the definition has changed since the Mesozoic era!
But yes, to answer your question, this is a word count as defined by spaces between words.
That is so bizarre.