$ time wc -w lesms10_big.txt
 113528600 lesms10_big.txt

real 0m2.125s
user 0m2.071s
sys  0m0.054s

$ time ./wc.pl -w lesms10_big.txt
 113528600 lesms10_big.txt

real 0m0.535s
user 0m3.574s
sys  0m0.599s