No, this is proper syntax: do_this_cool_function (-retire=>'early', -payscale=>-55.00, -pizza=>'cold', -beer=>none); This should work fine as in many modules like CGI.pm. The leading '-' in -retire will perl to interpret '-retire' as a string. Here is a snip from perlop

       Unary "-" performs arithmetic negation if the operand is
       numeric.  If the operand is an identifier, a string
       consisting of a minus sign concatenated with the
       identifier is returned.  Otherwise, if the string starts
       with a plus or minus, a string starting with the opposite
       sign is returned.  One effect of these rules is that
       -bareword is equivalent to "-bareword".
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