use strict;
my $str = 'i.e., George W. Bush
Lyndon B. Johnson, etc.';
my $regex = qr/.*([A-Z][a-z]+)\s([A-Z])[.]+\s([A-Z][a-z]+).*/p;
my $subst = '\\1 \\2 \\3';
my $result = $str =~ s/$regex/$subst/rg;
print "The result of the substitution is' $result\n";
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html