$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E ' open my $inFH, q{<}, \ < ); close $inFH or die $!; my $n = shift || 2; say join q{ }, shift( @words ), @words[ 0 .. $n - 2 ] while scalar @words >= $n;' The quick quick brown brown fox fox jumps jumps over over the the lazy lazy dog $ #### $ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E ' open my $inFH, q{<}, \ < ); close $inFH or die $!; my $n = shift || 2; say join q{ }, shift( @words ), @words[ 0 .. $n - 2 ] while scalar @words >= $n;' 4 The quick brown fox quick brown fox jumps brown fox jumps over fox jumps over the jumps over the lazy over the lazy dog $