Well that's all well & good if you subscribe to an elitist philosophy. I see it more as a ritualistic hazing that perpetuates in the monastery. It's a joke that never gets old, like when you go skiing & people on the chairlift clack their skis together to drop snow on the heads of people below them. I've fallen victem to this one myself; And that was after years of professionally developing Perl applications. It begs the question, if a 'back-ronym' is widely known & accepted, then does it replace the original word? And if so, does that make writing "PERL" ok? The generally accepted response is "no".

But the reality is that this is one of those pieces of misinformation that have gotten propagated early on in Perl's history, made it's way into poorly researched FAQ's & books, and has been passed on as folklore. As such it has become one of the most repeated criticisms in the history of the site. And while in frequency it wouldn't hold a candle to "use strict" neither does it hold nearly as much merit.