>perl -wMstrict -le "my @list= qw(first_string second_string THIRD fourth_string); my @newlist = map s/_string$//r, @list; printf qq{'$_' } for @list; print ''; printf qq{'$_' } for @newlist; " 'first_string' 'second_string' 'THIRD' 'fourth_string' 'first' 'second' 'THIRD' 'fourth'