<p>I know it is not easy to say why which 量词 should be used when, but this one seems strange to me. Why did the author choose ‘支’？</p>

<p>开发出中国第一支儿童营养液，。。。</p>

<p>支 is normally for 'pens,guns, army divisions, songs and compositions.'</p>

<p>Maybe the liquid is in a bottle, which may be long and thin??</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-07T02:01:26.837Z
Your gut is correct. In the past, most of those stuff come with containers like these: http://img4.cache.netease.com/stock/2009/9/20/200909201507096e963.jpg which are long and thin, so it became a norm to count them with 支 although now there are more variety in the containers. I'd say you can justify it by the dosage of them being small the container normally having a larger opening compared to their size and this make them qualified to be qualified with 支. By the way, you can still qualified them with 瓶.
user1228520
<grammar>
Why did the writer use 支 here？
# Why did the writer use 支 here？

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-04-06)

I know it is not easy to say why which 量词 should be used when, but this one seems strange to me. Why did the author choose ‘支’？

开发出中国第一支儿童营养液，。。。

支 is normally for 'pens,guns, army divisions, songs and compositions.'

Maybe the liquid is in a bottle, which may be long and thin??

**Tags:** grammar

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Your gut is correct. In the past, most of those stuff come with containers like these: http://img4.cache.netease.com/stock/2009/9/20/200909201507096e963.jpg which are long and thin, so it became a norm to count them with 支 although now there are more variety in the containers. I'd say you can justify it by the dosage of them being small the container normally having a larger opening compared to their size and this make them qualified to be qualified with 支. By the way, you can still qualified them with 瓶.  

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