echo a sentence with 8 words and 42 characters
# count lines, words, characters in the following sentence
echo a sentence with 8 words and 42 characters | wc
# feed the output of the piped combination above to another wc command
echo a sentence with 8 words and 42 characters | wc | wc
# and so on
echo a sentence with 8 words and 42 characters | wc | wc | wc