http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=48521


in reply to (tye)Re2: tr doesn't *really* use a list
in thread tr doesn't *really* use a list

Yes, ($a, $b, $c) is a list in that, syntactically, there are some scalars and they are separated by commas. But I don't think that's the interesting sense of 'list' in the context of Perl. In: $x = ($a, $b, $c) semantically, ($a, $b, $c) do not constitute a list because they are never on the stack together. That's why that code assigns $c to $x, whereas: $x = @a = ($a, $b, $c) assigns 3 to $x. It is just as easy for someone to get into trouble by not understanding what is meant by a Perl list.

In the documentation, the word 'list' certainly appears in places where it does not mean "a grouping of scalars on the stack". I don't think it follows from that, however, that there cannot be a specific meaning for 'list' as shorthand for 'Perl list'.