This was kinda cute, even though I don't completely understand the deal with DUMMYMODE (in the BOFH mindset, *all* users are dummies, so that should be a design assumption rather than a switch :)). I do have a few suggestions for you:

while (<>) {
      if ($_ eq /yes/ or /y.*/) {
          print "\n$word1 $word2 $word3 $word4\n";
          exit;
      } else {
          exit;
      }
  }
[download]

Your regex has a little problem. It will match 'y' anywhere in the input, rather than at the beginning of the input string which I think is what you want. Use the ^ assertion to match at the beginning of the string. Also, if you have verified that the user has started his answer with 'y' you don't really need to check explicitly for the string 'yes'.
See also the informative nodes Death to Dot Star! and Do not use diamond for STDIN.
Here's a less-cluttered alternative to your while loop block:

my $ans = <STDIN>;
print "\n$word1 $word2 $word3 $word4\n" if ($ans =~ /^y/);
[download]

or even:

print "\n$word1 $word2 $word3 $word4\n" if (($ans = <STDIN>) =~ /^y/);
[download]

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.