Pyth, 14 bytes

jdm+hd-rtd0Gcz 

Try it online: Demonstration

Explanation:

 implicit: z = input string cz split z by spaces m map each word d to: hd first letter of d + + rtd0 (lowercase of d[1:] - G but remove all chars of "abc...xyz") jd join resulting list by spaces and print 

sed (39 chars)

Just a couple of regular expressions:

sed 's+\<\(.\)[A-Za-z]*+\1+g;s+ *+ +g' 

Python 3.4, 94 92 82 77 bytes

print(*[w[0]+''.join(c[c.isalpha():]for c in w[1:])for w in input().split()]) 

I'm new to code golfing but I thought I'd give it a try! This one's not a winner, but it was fun.

This just splits the string, taking the first character of each word along with any punctuation in the rest of the word.

*edited with changes by FryAmTheEggman, DLosc

Jelly, 14 bytes

Ḣ;ḟØB$ Ḳ¬ÐfÇ€K 

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Solution done with Mr. Xcoder and caird coinheringaahing in Jelly Hypertraining chat room.

Alternative 14 bytes: Try it online!

Lua - 126 characters

Lua isn't much of a code golfing language, but I gave it a shot:

a=''for b in string.gmatch( c, '%S+%s?' )do d=(b:match('%w')or''):sub(1,1)e=b:match('[^%s%w]')or''a=a..d..e..' 'end print( a ) 

This assumes that c is the string.

Here it is cleaned up for readability:

local string = [[I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up - hear me shout! Tip me over and pour me out.]] local final = '' for word in string.gmatch( string, '%S+%s?' ) do local first = ( word:match( '%w' ) or '' ):sub( 1, 1 ) local second = word:match( '[^%s%w]' ) or '' final = final .. first .. second .. ' ' end print( final ) 

You can test it here (copy and paste it. For the first on you also have to do c = "I'm a little ....) For some reason the online demo of Lua won't let you input variables using io.read...

PowerShell, 56 bytes

%{($_-split' '|%{$_[0]+($_-replace'[a-z]','')})-join' '} 

Javascript (ES6) 72 68 bytes

f=x=>x.split(/\s+/).map(x=>x.replace(/^(.)|[a-z]/gi,'$1')).join(' ')

<input id="input" value="I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up - hear me shout! Tip me over and pour me out. " /> <button onclick="output.innerHTML=f(input.value)">Run</button> <br /><pre id="output"></pre>

Commented:

f=x=> x.split(/\s+/). // split input string by 1 or more spaces map(x=> // map function to resulting array x.replace(/^(.)|[a-z]/gi, '$1') // capture group to get the first character // replace all other letters with empty string ). join(' ') // join array with single spaces 

C99 - 170 169 bytes

main(_,a)char**a;{for(char*b=a[1],*c=b,*e,*d;*c++=*b;){for(e=b;*++b&&*b-32;);for(*b=0,d=strpbrk(e,"!',-."),d&&d-e?*c++=*d:0;b[1]==32;++b);++b;*c++=32;*c=0;}puts(a[1]);} 

Ungolfed:

main(int argc, char**a) { char*b=a[1],*c=b,*e,*d; while(*c++=*b){ for(e=b;*++b&&*b-32;); //scan for first space or end of word *b=0; //mark end of word for(;b[1]==32;++b); //skip following spaces d=strpbrk(e,"!',-."); //find punctuation if(d&&d-e) //append punctuation if any, and it's not the word itself *c++=*d; *c++=32; //append space b++; } *c=0; //mark end of line puts(a[1]); } 

Usage:

gcc -std=c99 test.c -o test ./test "I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up - hear me shout! Tip me over and pour me out." 

Output:

I' a l t, s a s. H i m h, h i m s. W I g a s u - h m s! T m o a p m o. 

Java 8, 87 bytes

s->{for(String x:s.split(" +"))System.out.print(x.replaceAll("^(.)|[a-z]+","$1")+" ");} 

Explanation:

Try it here.

s->{ // Method with String parameter and no return-type for(String x:s.split(" +")) // Split the input on one or multiple spaces // And loop over the substrings System.out.print( // Print: x.replaceAll("^(.)|[a-z]+","$1")// Regex to get the first letter + all non-letters +" "); // + a space delimiter // End of loop (implicit / single-line body) } // End of method 

Regex explanation:

x.replaceAll("^(.)|[a-z]+","$1") x.replaceAll(" "," ") # Replace the match of String1 with String2, in String `x` " " # Regex to match: ^(.) # The first character of String `x` |[a-z]+ # Or any one or multiple lowercase letters " " # Replace with: $1 # The match of the capture group (the first character) 

So it basically removes all lowercase letters of a String, except the very first one.

Perl 5, 34 bytes

33 bytes code + 1 for -p.

s!\S\K\S+| \K +!$&=~s/\w| //gr!ge 

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R, 46 45 bytes

cat(gsub("^\\w\\W*\\K\\w*","",scan(,""),T,T)) 

This reads a line from STDIN and prints to STDOUT. It uses a regular expression to remove all characters after the first letter followed by any amount of punctuation.

Ungolfed + explanation:

# Read a string from STDIN and convert it to a character vector, # splitting at spaces input <- scan(what = "") # Replace stuff with nothing using a regex. # ^ start position anchor # \w single "word" character # \W* any amount of non-word (i.e. punctuation) characters # \K move the match position forward # \w* any number of word characters replaced <- gsub("^\\w\\W*\\K\\w*", "", input, ignore.case = TRUE, perl = TRUE) # Print the vector elements to STDOUT, separated by a space cat(replaced, sep = " ") 

Example:

> cat(gsub("^\\w\\W*\\K\\w*","",scan(,""),T,T)) 1: I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up - hear me shout! Tip me over and pour me out. I' a l t, s a s. H i m h, h i m s. W I g a s u - h m s! T m o a p m o. 

05AB1E, 13 bytes

#õKεćsDáмJ}ðý 

Try it online!

Explanation:

#õKεćsDáмJ}ðý Full program # Split on spaces õK Remove empty strings from the list ε For each... ć push a[1:], a[0] s Swap D Duplicate á Push only letters of a м pop a,b => push a.remove(all elements of b) J Join } End for each ðý Join with spaces 

VBA (Excel), 141 133 Bytes

Using VBA Immediate Window, [A1] as Inputted Strings.

z=" "&[A1]:for a=2 to len(z):c=mid(z,a,1):[A2]=[A2]&IIF(mid(z,a-1,1)=" ",c,IIF(asc(lcase(c))>96 and asc(lcase(c))<123,"",c)):next:?[TRIM(A2)] 

z=" "&[a1]:for a=2 to len(z):c=mid(z,a,1):e=asc(lcase(c)):[a2]=[a2]&iif(mid(z,a-1,1)=" ",c,IIF((e>96)*(e<123),"",c)):next:?[TRIM(A2)] 

Perl 6, 15 bytes

s:g/(\w)\w+/$0/ 

Try it online!