leaning toothpick syndrome

Questions

What does leaning toothpick syndrome mean?

The situation in which a quoted string expression becomes difficult to read because it contains a large number of escape characters, usually backslashes, to avoid delimiter collision.

Where does leaning toothpick syndrome come from?

Introduced in the official Perl documentation, in reference to the shape of the backslash character.

How to pronounce leaning toothpick syndrome

1. Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “leaning toothpick syndrome”.
2. Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling () so you know which sounds to aim for.
3. Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “leaning toothpick syndrome”.
4. Repeat and practice — Say “leaning toothpick syndrome” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.