Q:

Python Counters - summing the number of repeat words in a list

i'm trying to take a count of the number of times each word appears in a list. As such i'm trying to use the Counters module but rather than summing up the words, it is summing up individual letters instead.
Code snippet:
from collections import Counter

    wkday = ans.strftime("%A")
    incoming.append([wkday,time])
    mycount = Counter(wkday)
    print mycount

More code:
with open('temp_dates.csv') as csvfile2:
readCSV2 = csv.reader(csvfile2, delimiter=',')
incoming = []
for row in readCSV2:
     readin = row[0]
     time = row[1]
     year, month, day = (int(x) for x in readin.split('-'))
     ans = datetime.date(year, month, day)
     wkday = ans.strftime("%A")
     incoming.append([wkday,time])
     mycount = Counter(wkday)
     print mycount
     print wkday
with open('new_dates2.csv', 'w') as out_file:
  writer = csv.writer(out_file)
  writer.writerows(incoming)

If I use Counters as I have it listed this is what I get:
Counter({'e': 2, 'd': 2, 'a': 1, 'n': 1, 's': 1, 'W': 1, 'y': 1})
Counter({'a': 1, 'd': 1, 'M': 1, 'o': 1, 'n': 1, 'y': 1})
Counter({'a': 1, 'e': 1, 'd': 1, 's': 1, 'u': 1, 'T': 1, 'y': 1})
Counter({'a': 1, 'e': 1, 'd': 1, 's': 1, 'u': 1, 'T': 1, 'y': 1})
Counter({'a': 1, 'd': 1, 'M': 1, 'o': 1, 'n': 1, 'y': 1})
Counter({'a': 1, 'd': 1, 'M': 1, 'o': 1, 'n': 1, 'y': 1})
Counter({'e': 2, 'd': 2, 'a': 1, 'n': 1, 's': 1, 'W': 1, 'y': 1})

What I need is this:
Monday: 3
Tuesday: 16
Wednesday: 6
...etc

The input data (print wkday) looks like this:
Tuesday
Monday
Monday
Sunday
Saturday
Saturday
Thursday
Wednesday
Sunday
Sunday
Wednesday
Tuesday
Thursday
Wednesday

Any help would be appreciated. 

A:

You need to initialize mycount outside the for loop and increment the value for each weekday:
# Initialize mycount
mycount = Counter()
with open('temp_dates.csv') as csvfile2:
    readCSV2 = csv.reader(csvfile2, delimiter=',')
    incoming = []
    for row in readCSV2:
        readin = row[0]
        time = row[1]
        year, month, day = (int(x) for x in readin.split('-'))
        ans = datetime.date(year, month, day)
        wkday = ans.strftime("%A")
        incoming.append([wkday,time])
        # Increment count for weekday
        mycount[wkday] += 1

