my @people = qw/jerry kramer george elaine/;

sub sortnames {
    my( @names ) = @_;
    @names = sort @names;
    return wantarray ? @names : join ' ', @names;
}

my $sorted_string = sortnames( @people );

my @sorted_list = sortnames( @people );

print $sorted_string, "\n";

print "$_\n" foreach @sorted_list;