You probably could use the Schwartzian Transform (also see this FMTYEWTK ):

@sorted = 
  map { $_->[0] }
  sort { $a->[1] cmp $b->[1] }
  map { (my $tmp = lc $_) =~ s/^the\s+//; [ $_, $tmp ] }
  @indata;
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update: moved parens to the right place on the my.