In order to assign to a hash, you must pass in a matching value for every key, which can be arbitrary, ie 'AALIYAH' => 1, 'AARON' => 1, etc.

A common idiom for this is expressed using map():

my %WORD = map ( $_ => 1 ), 
('AALIYAH', 'AARON', 'ABBE' , 'ABBEY', 'ABBI', 'ABBIE', 'ABBIGAIL', 'A
+LEX');
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Exists only looks for keys, in your first example ALEX is a value, not a key.

I suspect you think your has looks like this:

(
  'AALIYAH'    => '',
  'AARON'      => '',
  'ABBE'       => '',
  'ABBEY'      => '',
  'ABBI'       => '',
  'ABBIE'      => '',
  'ABBIGAIL'   => '',
  'ALEX'       => '',
)
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When in reality it looks like this:

(
  'AALIYAH'    => 'AARON',
  'ABBE'       => 'ABBEY',
  'ABBI'       => 'ABBIE',
  'ABBIGAIL'   => 'ALEX',
)
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my %WORD = (
   'AALIYAH'  => 'AARON', 
   'ABBE'     => 'ABBEY',
   'ABBI'     => 'ABBIE',
   'ABBIGAIL' => 'ALEX',
);
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jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

A hash slice is a good way to initialize that sort of thing,

my %word;
@word{'AALIYAH', 'AARON', 'ABBE' , 'ABBEY',
      'ABBI', 'ABBIE', 'ABBIGAIL', 'ALEX'} = ();
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After Compline,
Zaxo

You are not understanding how hashes work. Your code creates a hash, but assigns the value 'ALEX' to the key 'ABBIGAIL'. When you move ALEX earlier in the hash, you also put him in the 'odd' posiiton, so ALEX bacame a key, assigned the value 'ABBE',

Data::Dumper is very useful in this regaerd:

 
use Data::Dumper;
 my %WORD =
('AALIYAH', 'AARON', 'ABBE' , 'ABBEY', 'ABBI', 'ABBIE', 'ABBIGAIL', 'A
+LEX');

print "FIRST HASH:\n";
print Dumper(\%WORD);

my %WORD = ('AALIYAH', 'AARON', 'ALEX', 'ABBE', 'ABBEY', 'ABBI', 'ABBI
+E', 'ABBIGAIL');
print "SECOND HASH:\n";
print Dumper(\%WORD);
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produces:

FIRST HASH:
$VAR1 = {
          'ABBI' => 'ABBIE',
          'ABBIGAIL' => 'ALEX',
          'AALIYAH' => 'AARON',
          'ABBE' => 'ABBEY'
        };
SECOND HASH:
$VAR1 = {
          'ALEX' => 'ABBE',
          'AALIYAH' => 'AARON',
          'ABBEY' => 'ABBI',
          'ABBIE' => 'ABBIGAIL'
        };
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Also, note that the keys to the hash are not in alphabetical order. They are in an order picked by perl, which you cannot count on.

If you need to operate on has keys sorted alphabeitcally, you need to sort them yourself, for example:

for ( sort keys %WORD )
{
    print "$_: $WORD{$_}\n"
}
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some or all code untested.

A hash consists of key, value pairs. Only keys can be tested for whether or not they exist, as shown in this snippet:

use Data::Dumper;
my %WORD = 
('AALIYAH', 'AARON', 'ABBE' , 'ABBEY', 'ABBI', 'ABBIE', 'ABBIGAIL', 'A
+LEX');
print Dumper(\%WORD);

__DATA__
$VAR1 = {
          'ABBI' => 'ABBIE',
          'ABBIGAIL' => 'ALEX',
          'AALIYAH' => 'AARON',
          'ABBE' => 'ABBEY'
        };
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You should be using a hash slice instead.

my @names = ('AALIYAH', 'AARON', 'ABBE' , 'ABBEY', 'ABBI', 'ABBIE', 'A
+BBIGAIL', 'ALEX');
my %WORD;
@WORD{@names} = ();
...
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Take a look at perldoc perldata for more information on the wonderful data structures in perl as well as some nifty tricks that can be performed upon them.

Hope this helps.

antirice    
The first rule of Perl club is - use Perl
The ith rule of Perl club is - follow rule i - 1 for i > 1

my %word;
undef @word{qw(AALIYAH AARON ALEX ...)};
print "exists!\n" if exists $word{ALEX};

# Or if you want to make sure the values are set to undef:
my %word;
@word{qw(AALIYAH AARON ...)} = undef;
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foreach (sort {$a <=> $b} keys %hash) {
        # do something with $hash{$_} ...
}
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foreach (sort keys %hash) {
        # ...
}
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-ted-