note virtualsue That's apparently a jokey [wp://backronym], but it's quite apt so it has persisted, helped along by the fact that the name "Perl" looks like an acronym. The story AIUI is that the desired name '[wp://Pearl]' was already in use for another computer language, so the originator ([wp://Larry_Wall|Larry Wall]) damaged the spelling in a way that would keep the pronounciation the same. This has caused it to turn into a sort of [wp://shibboleth] which stupid people sometime use to bash perceived newbies, but what the hell. Try to ignore it. 602199 602250