Perl REALLY stands for:

Practical Extraction and Report Language

 257/31%

Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister

 124/15%

Polymorphic Existential Recursive Lambdas

 32/4%

Perl's an Extremely Reliable Language

 53/6%

People Earn Respect Lazily

 28/3%

Perfection Enters Real Life

 30/4%

Programmers Everywhere Relish Leisure

 31/4%

Provides Employment for Randal's Lectures

 24/3%

Programmers Enter Riding Llamas

 77/9%

Perfectly Easy, Really. Look!

 83/10%

Perl Expansions are Really Lame

 57/7%

Other

 26/3%

822 total votes

[Bloodnok]

• Pretty, Enjoyable, Runnable Lines
• Programmatically Enabling Results, Look

[Caesura]

For me its programmers escaping real life...

[Moriarty]

I don't know about anybody else but I definitely relish leisure. :)

[Anonymous Monk]

Like Superman, Perl stands for "truth, justice... and all that stuff."

[tbone1]

Please Encapsulate Real Life?

[belg4mit]

Perfectly Easy. Really, Look!

[Ratazong]

Looking at Coding in smileys or camel code clearly shows that Perl is an esoteric programming language, however (unlike most others) having some practical use, too ;-)

That's why I think that it really means

• Powerful esoteric reporting language.

so long! Rata.

[syphilis]

C:\>perldoc perl
NAME
    perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language

End of argument ;-)

Cheers,
Rob

[Anonymous Monk]

Ahem

perldoc perl |grep -C1 actually

    Perl actually stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister, b
+ut
    don't tell anyone I said that.

[ChuckularOne]

I WANT MY LLAMA!!!!!
(Yes, I was shouting on purpose)

[Popcorn Dave]

Really? I'm holding out for pushmepullyou. ;)

[DrHyde]

Politely Expressed Racoon Love

[Anonymous Monk]

Pork Express Really Long

[wjw]

Practical extensible reliable legible ..ok, it is a list of attributes, not a sentence or phrase.. but it darn sure works for me! :-)

[jonadab]

It doesn't. Perl is a name, not an acronym. HTH.HAND.

[arc_of_descent]

I chose Perl's an Extremely Reliable Language. It always helps me to get out of tough programming situations.

[swampyankee]

I do like "Perl's an Extremely Reliable Language," mostly because I have a horrid attraction to recursive acronyms.

[JadeNB]

I can't help thinking of PEMDAS:

Please Excuse … Larry.

I can't come up with anything polite to put in the blank. ‘(the) Ravings (of) ’ fits, but doesn't seem very nice (or appropriate).

[romandas]

Please Excuse Rambling Larry?

[Anonymous Monk]

Perl actually stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister, but don't tell anyone I said that.

[romandas]

Precariously Enabling Rickety Locution

-- Avoid prolix nebulosity.

[QM]

Panther Emu Racehorse Llama

(OK, I cheetahed a little bit.)

[Akoya]

I have to go with Larry, Tom, and Randal on this one "To those who love it, Perl is the Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister." (Camel book, preface)

[Xilman]

Preposterously Eccentric for Real Life(tm)

[graceoflarkspur]

<Crow> Parenthetical Echoes Reverberate Loudly!</Crow>

<Mike> Possibly Ethical Reasons Languish!</Mike>

<Servo> Hirsute Astronauts Revile Massachusetts!</Servo>

<Mike> No, Servo, this is P E R L...</Mike>

[tbone1]

Primarily for Entertaining with Ribald Llamas!

(Or not.)

[stonecolddevin]

Perl really stands for "no u".

[shenme]

Pedantic, Eclectic, Rumpled, but Lovable.

Pedantic, because the details do count, but you should know those anyway.

Eclectic, "selecting or choosing from various sources", as in

"Perl shows its origin as an amalgamation of tools, for the purpose of being a more useful tool."

Rumpled, because lots of people have run their fingers through its hair.

Lovable, just because. I think it rubs off on the best of us here.

Altogether, like its creator.

[primerdp]

For those of us trying to do NLP in perl.. Painfully Extracting Real Language

[TJPride]

Any chance on a more serious vote for just PERL vs Perl?