blah

sigh... "plain variables" are "named variables".

$var  = "Hello world!";        # \
@ary  = qw(foo bar baz);       # - plain
%hash = qw(foo 1 bar 2 baz 3); # /

$sref = \$var;  # \
$aref = \@ary;  # - references
$href = \%hash; # /
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References which aren't references of plain (or named) variables are anonymous.

E.g. we speak of $ary = [] as of an anonymous array which happens to be stored in the plain (or named) scalar variable $ary, be that stored in a symbol table or a pad.