yogi_Extract The Nth (Specified) Word Row By Row For A Column Of Strings

                                          Google Spreadsheet   Post  #931

Yogi Anand, D.Eng, P.E.      ANAND Enterprises LLC -- Rochester Hills MI     www.energyefficientbuild.com.    Dec 19, 2012

user Zarzeczny said:(http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/docs/spreadsheets/PLgGAxh6F4U)

Need to return only first value in an array

Hi all, 

I'm trying to split the contents of the cell but only return the nth value in the resulting array.

For instance, say I have the following value in A1: A B C

=split(a1, " ") would get be A in one cell, B in another cell, and C in another.

How do I make it so that it just returns A?

I found a similar question/answer here: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/docs/p3t3feg7Jic, but it doesn't seem to work.

Thanks

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following is a solution to a bit more generalized problem