At the thrift store the ratio of long sleeves shirts to short sleeve shirts was 4: 3 for every short sleeve shirts how many long sleeve shirts

Does it say how many shirts there are total?

Here the question is asking us basically for unit ratio which is kinda like unit rate except ratio wise.
since the ratio is 4:3 our answer will be 2:1
this is because if you keep taking one shirt out, you still have to have at least one shirt on the short sleeve side, you end up with 2 long sleeves for every 1 short sleeve