The strings in the  @w array seem to have whitespace before the first single-quote. Any leading whitespace will remain after the single-quotes are deleted from the string. Is this whitespace expected? Use of
    print Dumper \@w;
would make any leading (or trailing) whitespace obvious.

BTW: All single-quotes could be deleted from a string in a single
    $w[0]=~s/'//g;
statement. Please see perlre, perlretut and perlrequick, and Regexp Quote-Like Operators in perlop for s///g. All single-quotes could be deleted from every string in an array with
    s/'//g for @w;
(but this still leaves any whitespace untouched).