Or without the extended regex features of 5.10 (basically moritz's approach, but with only one capture): 
>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $text  = q{hello to 'all' this   perl-monk's friends};
 my $wchar = qr{ [A-Za-z'-] }xms;
 my $word  = qr{ (?<! $wchar) $wchar+ }xms;
 while ($text =~ m{ (?= ($word \s+ $word)) }xmsg) {
   print $1
   }
"
hello to
to 'all'
'all' this
this   perl-monk's
perl-monk's friends

[download]

In reply to Re^2: Regexp matching words, not doing what I expect by AnomalousMonk
in thread Regexp matching words, not doing what I expect by cosmicperl

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