> laurent@bigmac ~> irb --simple-prompt
> >> a = [ "Illinois (3762)", "Indiana", "Iowa (64)", "Kansas", "Kentucky 
> (2675)" ]
> => ["Illinois (3762)", "Indiana", "Iowa (64)", "Kansas", "Kentucky (2675) 
> "]
> >> r = /(\w+)/
> => /(\w+)/
> >> a.each { |s| p r.match(s)[0] }
> "Illinois"
> "Indiana"
> "Iowa"
> "Kansas"
> "Kentucky"
>
> Hope this helps,


With these names it works, but not for example with "New York". Then it 
matches only "New"...

Yes, I'm new to regexp...

bye!
Dominik