use strict;
my @lines = <DATA>;
chomp @lines;
foreach (@lines) {
   my @words = split " ", $_;
   print "\$_: '$_'\n";
   foreach (@words) {
      print "'$_' ";
   }
   print "\n\n";
}
__DATA__
 Delimit each  word with   one  or more spaces
   This  is  the    second  line

##</code><code>##

$_: ' Delimit each  word with   one  or more spaces'
'Delimit' 'each' 'word' 'with' 'one' 'or' 'more' 'spaces' 

$_: '   This  is  the    second  line'
'This' 'is' 'the' 'second' 'line' 

##</code><code>##

   my @words = split;