The Gross reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004
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Gross

For thoughtful child sponsors
the term gross may mean:

it is always preceded by an article or a number;
  • when the preceding word is a number, it often implies multiplication rather than combining that number of separate counts, e.g. "two gross" can refer equally to a single container into which 288 items were counted, or to a pair of containers into each of which 144 were counted
  • normally (i.e., outside situations justifying extreme brevity), specifying the kind of objects being counted may not be done by positioning the kind directly following "gross", but requires that the word "of" intervene, e.g. "288 apples", but "two gross of apples"

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