Is it possible to get counts, too? My UNIONs get me all distinct values across all 4 columns but now I need to know how many times each value appears across all 4 columns. Need to stay with stock SQL, if possible.

(SELECT DISTINCT classify1 AS classified FROM class) UNION
(SELECT DISTINCT classify2 AS classified FROM class) UNION
(SELECT DISTINCT classify3 AS classified FROM class) UNION
(SELECT DISTINCT classify4 AS classified FROM class)
ORDER BY classified
Returns:
A
B
C
D
E
F
H
Need:
A | 3
B | 3
C | 4
D | 3
E | 1
F | 1
H | 1
SQL Fiddle
Result
When you use
DISTINCTyou eliminate the extra ‘A’ inclassify3