> print (...) interpreted as function..

print does not like to be treated as function, ie be followed by parens.

You can use in these case the + unary operator:  print +(4-1)... or surrounding the whole in an additional parens:  print +((4-1)...)

See Symbolic Unary Operators on docs and also a precise example at Named Unary Operators

PS interesting enough is a paragraph of print docs:

> Be careful not to follow the print keyword with a left parenthesis unless you want the corresponding right parenthesis to terminate the arguments to the print.

Infact an openening parens do not always provoke the above warning (perl is so smart..):

perl -we "use strict; my $x; print (1,2,3) and $x++"

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