This may look a little funky, but it does the job 🙂

declare @x table ( words varchar(50) not null )

insert @x

select 'This is the first line' union all

select 'Second line' union all

select 'Word' union all

select 'This is the fourth line'

selectcase when charindex(' ', words, charindex(' ', words) + 1) = 0

then words

else left(words, charindex(' ', words, charindex(' ', words) + 1))

end

from @x

go

--------------------------------------------------

This is

Second line

Word

This is

(4 row(s) affected)

/Kenneth