You probably want some verbs like open, close, look, take, eat, go ect. For that you can make an array of strings and check those. VAR VERBS$[3] VERBS$[0]="OPEN" VERBS$[1]="CLOSE" VERBS$[2]="GO" FOR I%=0 TO LEN(VERBS$-1) IF LEFT$(S$,LEN(VERBS$)) THEN 'CHECK WHAT IS AFTER VERB BREAK ENDIF NEXT