use warnings;
use strict;
my $text = "   I'd like a foobar(s)!  What about you?";
print "Pretext: $text\n";
my $num_of_words = 6;

my @text;
for (my $i=1; $i<=$num_of_words; $i++) {
  $text =~ s/^\s*([\w|\(|\)|'|:|!|\.|\,|;]*\s*)(.*)/$2/;
  push (@text,$1);
}
for (@text) { print $_; }