The hyphen-minus - used to indicate a list item is also being counted as a word. * and + notation does not cause the bug to occur.
Environment
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.4.14
Installer version: v1.4.14
Operating system: Windows 10 Pro 10.0.22621
Login status: not logged in
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: off
Legacy editor: off
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on
RECOMMENDATIONS:
none
I guess by moving the topic to Help means this isn’t considered a bug, which I’m not sure I agree with. At least there’s a workaround for lists if absolutely necessary. Shame links appear to cause the issue too… Community word count plugins are no better it seems.
All the examples in that thread show Obsidian counting more words than desired (the separate parts of a URL, the hidden parts of a link, comments). In this case it is counting a single punctuation mark with no letters or numerals, which seems like something that should never be counted. (Maybe it still stems from the same underlying cause, but Obsidian isn’t counting other punctuation marks.)