Can you use a string to position layers in time based on the words in the string?

Do you know how to create a function that would iterate through a string, finding the words to make an array. Then have it grab the first word, count how many characters is has, and go into the project and select that many layers and push them to a new start time (a marker if you know how)? ...and then do the same thing for the next word in the original string?