srand; # seed the random generator

open(FILE,"file.txt"); # put the file contents into one big scalar
while(<FILE>) {
    $file .= <FILE>;
}
close(FILE);

$file =~ s/\r/ /g; # remove carriage returns and replace them with spaces
$file =~ s/\s+/\s/g; # remove multiple consecutive spaces

@file = qw($file); # seperate the file into single words

$word = $file[rand($#file)]; # select a random word