[R] wildcard symbol or character

[john.polo]

hello all,

i want to split a list into smaller lists. the list looks like this:
CW-W730  CW-W720  CW-W710  CW-W700  CW-W690  CW-W680  CW-W670  CW-W660 
CE-W997  CE-W987  CE-W977  CE-W967  CE-W956  CE-W944  CE-W934  CE-W924 
7W-W760  7W-W750  7W-96    7W-941   7W-932   7W-923   7W-914   7W-905  
7E-W565  7E-W555  7E-W545  7E-W535  7E-W525  7E-906   7E-850   7E-840 
...


i want the smaller lists to be based on the first two characters, like 
CW or 7E. i tried split() where the f variable = 
c("1E-*","1W-*","2E-*","2W-*","5E-*","5W-*","7E-*","7W-*","CE-*","CW-*"), 
but * doesn't work as a wildcard as i had hoped. can someone tell me the 
appropriate wildcard character/symbol to use, please?

john