Your words reinforce my thoughts on how closely programming and language (spoken and written) are related. I'm sure that's a topic quite a few books have been written on already.

I will definitely take your advice to read other people's code. It's something I haven't been doing much of. Thanks.

$PM = "Perl Monk's";
$MCF = "Most Clueless Friar";
$nysus = $PM . $MCF;