Like this solution the most ! Thanks _why !! "why the lucky stiff" <ruby-talk / whytheluckystiff.net> wrote in message news:20021114071035.GA4625 / rysa.inetz.com... > "Here I have 'two ''quoted'' matches' and 'here''s the second' ".scan( quote1_re ) > ==>[ ["two ''quoted'' matches"], ["here''s the second"]] Now I would like to modify it to generate the following: "Here I have 'two ''quoted'' matches' and 'here''s the second' one.".scan( ???) ==> [["Here"],["I"],["have"],["two ''quoted'' matches"], ["and"],["here''s the second"],["one."]]