Well, you've got me there, without Deparse I'd have no idea where to start on this one....

% echo blakem | perl -MO=Deparse -peprint -elength -eq
LINE: while (defined($_ = <ARGV>)) {
    print length '}continue{print or die qq(-p destination: $!\\n)';
}
-e syntax OK
[download]

That q is gobbling up a big chunk of the control structure. weird stuff indeed...

-Blake