Use StringReplace[list, PunctuationCharacter -> " "] (* {"string1", "bla bla", "more stuff", "and more stuff"} *) [`PunctuationCharacter`](http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/ref/PunctuationCharacter.html) is new in version 10.3. The 10.x updates received many new functions for text processing. In older versions I would use an explicit list of possible punctuation characters, i.e. punctuation = Alternatives@@Characters[",.?:;'\"!-"] I'm pretty sure I missed some. StringReplace[list, punctuation -> " "] (* {"string1", "bla bla", "more stuff", "and more stuff"} *)