#! perl -slw
use strict;

our( $string, @string );

sub parseSome {
    local $_ = $string;
    while( my $token =  shift @_ ) {
        m[$token\s+]gc or return;
        print pos, ' :',  substr $_, 0, pos;
    }
}

{
    local $string = 'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog';
    $string =~ m[the\s+]gc;
    print pos( $string ), ' :',  substr $string, 0, pos( $string );
    parseSome( qw[ quick brown cat ] );
    print pos( $string ), ' :',  substr $string, 0, pos( $string );
}
__END__
C:\test>junk9
4 :the
10 :the quick
16 :the quick brown
4 :the

##</code><code>##

local $SIG{__DIE__} = sub{ @{ $self } = @{ $copy } }