>SELECT nixies, NixieEng, cnt(*) FROM DBF() ORDER BY nixies GROUP BY nixies

In VFP8, SQL statements hew more closely to the SQL standard, which states that all non-aggregate fields in a SELECT field list must appear in the GROUP BY list. Unfortunately, you can't do the easy fix, including NixieEng in the GROUP BY, because you can't group by a memo. There are a couple of workarounds: you could do a PADR(nixieEng), and then GROUP BY 1, 2 (I think -- haven't actually checked the syntax); or you could do two SELECTs: one to limit the fields, and one to join in the memos.