well Larry (Wall) was a linguist and adept at coining memorable memes

For sure! I've honestly never written Perl, but I still often end up sharing the "three virtues" with junior engineers I work with. There's a certain timeless quality to a lot of the stuff he's come up with. (Plus, those of us who don't write Perl still owe him a debt of gratitude even just for the `patch` utility!)