I know thins is not the place but I know one of you know this one off the top of your head. I have: $list = "dog 1 1 1 cat 2 1 snake 111" and I want to end up with: dog 1 cat 2 snake 1 I thought $list =~ s/ \d \d/ \d/g; would do the trick, but that gives me: dog d 1 1 cat d snake d 1 Thanks, Roger