$re = '/(\w+ )\s+/m';
$str = 'One OS to rule them all,
One OS to find them.
One OS to call them all,
And in salvation bind them.
In the bright land of Linux,
Where the hackers play.';
$subst = "\1";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
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 PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php