While under the influence of boredom, I wrote the following script:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

print "What is your insult? ";
chomp(my $input = <>);

my @matching = qw/disk duck deck/;

if ($input eq $matching[0..2]) {die "bastard\n"};
[download]

But, when I enter an "insult", the following error occurs:

Argument "" isn't numeric in array element at ./b line 10, <> line 1.
[download]

However, when I use a specific scalar reference to an array like so:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

print "What is your insult? ";
chomp(my $input = <>);

my @matching = qw/disk duck deck/;

if ($input eq $matching[0]) {die "bastard\n"};
[download]

I get no such error; but that's hardly a solution.
I didn't think there was a different range operator (than ..) for Strings; but perhaps I'm wrong.
... Or perhaps it's something else?

Thank you for your help - dusk