#!/usr/bin/env perl use 5.011; # implies strict use warnings; use List::MoreUtils 'pairwise'; # this is it my @pronouns = qw(I thou he/she/it we you they); my @endings = ('', 'st', 's', '', '', ''); print "predicate?\n"; my $predicate = <>; my ($verb, $rest) = split ' ', $predicate, 2; pairwise { no warnings 'once'; print "$a $verb$b $rest"; # no \n because no chomp } @pronouns, @endings;