Looking through the perlsub and perlop manpages I've noticed that there are many references to "magic" and "magical" there (just search any of them for "magic"). I wonder why is Perl so rich in them.

Some examples: 

print ++($foo = 'zz')            # prints 'aaa'       
printf "%d: %s", $! = 1, $!      # prints '1: Operation not permitted'
while (my $line = <FH>) { ... }  # $line is tested for definedness, not truth
use warnings; print "0 but true" + 1  # "0 but true" is a valid number!
perl
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