[boomlinde]

wc, in its basic form, is made for counting words. A filename in your case is not a word. I don't see the problem here. Use wc in line mode and the "problem" is solved.

It also has nothing to do with the shell, nor does the general case of pipes you present below. Your shell redirects the output from ls to the input of wc. If you don't like the simple approach that tools consume and produce arbitrary text in a manner it sees fit for its purpose,, maybe it's your operating system that you have a beef with.