title: accessing the tokenized words in python
body: <p>Suppose we have values in query column of a panda data frame which are tokenized using the split() function like </p>
  
  <pre><code>query[4] = "['rain', 'shower', 'head']".
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now I want to perform some operations on individual words. So, I converted it into list and iterated through it using for loop like like :</p>
  
  <pre><code>l=list(query[4])
  
  for word in l : word=func(word)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But it is storing each alphabets on the list like - <code>['[', "'", 'r', 'a', 'i', 'n', "'", ','</code> and so on.</p>
  
  <p>I have even tried to use join function i.e. - <code>''.join(word)</code> and <code>''.join(l)</code></p>
  
  <p>But still nothing is working for me. 
  Can you suggest something here. Any help will be appreciated. </p>