Why did the writer use 支 here？

Question

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??

Your gut is correct. In the past, most of those stuff come with containers like these: 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, Apr 7, 2015 at 2:01
Maybe the liquid is in a bottle, which may be long and thin?? Yes. So 支 is the 量词 of the sort of little bottle, filled with 营养液, or medicine, etc. — user4072, Apr 7, 2015 at 2:03

user6617user6617 · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-07 05:45:40Z

1

Since the container(bottle) of it is like a stick. We use 支 to describe all the stick-like things.

Maybe I should post a pic here to help you understand what I'm talking about: A sample of 营养液

answered Apr 7, 2015 at 5:45

user6617

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