I think it's called indirect syntax in contrast to CGI->new being the direct syntax.

/me ponders that...

Possibly.

Though you might read new CGI as calling new from CGI .

This would hold for new SomeClass, mostly because "new" is hardly a verb. It's an adjective, at best. Were new called create (construct, make, whatever) instead, as in $cgi = create CGI then we'd be right back at the kick $ball example. The grammatical object (CGI, SomeClass, $ball, $foo, et cetera) we're dealing with is something that is directly acted upon.

Another example could be save $file, assuming that somehow $file->can('save') . Again, the grammatical object is a direct one.

Contrast that with

move $file "~";  # $file->move("~"), or move a file to one's home dire
+ctory,
                 # where $file is the thing being acted upon *directly
+*
                 # and "~" is just another grammatical argument to the
+ verb.
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