Following on from the foregoing to achieve a result from the second example the same as the first you could do:

my @look_for = ($name,$nerd,$noodle,$froodle,);
foreach my $item (@look_for) {
$item =~ s/$i_seek/ /g;
}
($name,$nerd,$noodle,$froodle,) = @look_for;
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But this looks a little clumsy - maybe there's a better way?