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Correct. In fact, it was one of the first things I learned about how the language was described when I first started learning Perl in 2001. It's something that I think all Perl hackers run into early on. Here's an undated reference. I can't quickly find the date it was coined for Perl specifically, but I know it was over 17 years ago.
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It's also currently in the last paragraph of the introduction of the Perl Wikipedia page.
Perl 5... has been nicknamed "the Swiss Army chainsaw of scripting languages" because of its flexibility and power, and also its ugliness.
Personally I find Perl code beautiful, but even Learning Perl 6th Edition says (not sure which specific author included it):
Perl is kind of ugly. This is true. The symbol of Perl has become the camel, from the cover of the venerable Camel book (also known as Programming Perl)... Camels are kind of ugly, too. But they work hard, even in tough conditions. Camels are there to get the job done despite all the difficulties, even when they look bad and smell worse and sometimes spit at you. Perl is a little like that.
Just another Perl hooker - My clients appreciate that I keep my code clean but my comments dirty.
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