concatenate grep output to an echo statement in UNIX

Question

I am trying to output the number of directories in a given path on a SINGLE line. My desire is to output this:

X-many directories

Currently, with my bash sript, I get this:

X-many

directories

Here's my code:

ARGUMENT=$1

ls -l $ARGUMENT | egrep -c '^drwx'; echo -n "directories"

How can I fix my output? Thanks

Answer 1

I suggest

 echo "$(ls -l "$ARGUMENT" | egrep -c '^drwx') directories"

This uses the shell's feature of final newline removal for command substitution.