You need to capture just the first word and replace it with uc $1. To make that work use the /e qualifier to the substitution which evaluates the replace ment as perl code. 

my $words ='one two three';
$words =~ s/^([[:alpha:]]+)/ uc $1 /e;
print $words;
__END__
ONE two three

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In reply to Re: Changing the first word to uppercase by hipowls
in thread Changing the first word to uppercase by Anonymous Monk

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