Ignore punctuation when addressing word n of a string

[Mark Powell]

I have a string such as "now, that is a string!"  But when I address word n
of the string, I get "now," (when n = 1) and "string!" for (when n = 5).
How can I point to a string and get only the nth word, without any
contiguous punctuation getting in the way?  

Thanks in advance,

Mark Powell
Production Manager
VERITAS Education