import re s = 'How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Well? what do you think? Are you feeling well?' l = re.split('[ ,?!.]', s.lower()) i, space = 0, [] while i < len(l): if l[i] == '': del l[i] i -= 1 i += 1 duplicates = [] for i in range(len(l)): for j in range(len(l)): if j!=i and l[i]==l[j]: duplicates.append(l[j]) duplicates = set(duplicates) temp = [] for item in duplicates: temp.append(item) duplicates = temp changed = True while changed == True: changed = False for i in range(len(duplicates) - 1): if duplicates[i] > duplicates[i + 1]: duplicates[i], duplicates[i + 1] = duplicates[i + 1], duplicates[i] changed = True for item in duplicates: print item