title: how to get just one scalar from perl split command
body: <p>I use to know how to do this.  I just want to grab a substring out a larger string and assign it to scalar.  So here is the Perl script I have hacked up ...</p>
  
  <pre><code>#!/usr/local/bin/perl 
  use warnings;
  use strict;
  
  my $thing = "thing1 thing2 thing3 thing4 thing5 thing6 thing7 thing8";
  my $thing4 = ${@{split (/ /, $thing)}[3]};
  print "thing4 is $thing4\n";
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>... the output I get is this ...</p>
  
  <pre><code>Use of uninitialized value $_ in split at ./perlex.pl line 6.
  Can't use string ("0") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at ./perlex.pl line 6.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>... I was hoping that the output would be ...</p>
  
  <pre><code>thing4 is thing4
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What am I doing wrong here?</p>