Here's the quick explanation. What does this piece of code mean?

my $result = something;

Is something a function call? Is it a string literal?

You have to make your intent clear to Perl and to human readers. Make it unambiguously a function call with:

my $result = something();

... or a string with:

my $result = 'something';

Where it's not obvious what you mean, make it obvious. That's what strict was complaining about.