&gt; Only if your language is really awful. A good language shouldn&#x27;t even let you run &quot;5 &lt; x&quot; when x is a list, but even a mediocre one would surely at least make that error out at runtime rather than giving a nonsense answer.<p>It depends what you consider &quot;Nonsense&quot;. Python for example has no reliable way to differentiate between a string and a list. Strings are iterable, but lists can&#x27;t be compared with the &lt; syntax for example.<p>My point is simply that $x very clearly says (in Perl 6) &quot;A single value called x&quot; wheras @x is &quot;A list of values called x&quot;. In python, &quot;x&quot; is indeterminate even at runtime.<p>Oh, and you can declare barewords with \x for example, if you really want to, it is Perl after all.