Using your first example:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
$currentSentence =~ s/[\ba\b|\ban\b|\bthe\b]//g;
exit;
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I get the following:

P:\>rmv1.pl
Global symbol "$currentSentence" requires explicit package name at P:\
+rmv1.pl line 4.
Execution of P:\rmv1.pl aborted due to compilation errors.
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Then I fixed the error on line 4:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my $currentSentence =~ s/[\ba\b|\ban\b|\bthe\b]//g;
exit;
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Which yields the following:

P:\>rmv2.pl
Use of uninitialized value $currentSentence in substitution (s///) at 
+P:\rmv2.pl line 4.
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So, to fix that, I added a value based on your loose description:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my $currentSentence = "The big dog rolled in an open field filled with
+ a type of grass.";
$currentSentence =~ s/[\ba\b|\ban\b|\bthe\b]//g;
exit;
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I get the following:

P:\>rmv3.pl

P:\>
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Now morbidly curioius, I added a line to display the result:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my $currentSentence = "The big dog rolled in an open field filled with
+ a type of grass.";
$currentSentence =~ s/[\ba\b|\ban\b|\bthe\b]//g;
print "[$currentSentence]\n";
exit;
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I get the following:

P:\>rmv4.pl
[T big dog rolld i  op fild filld wi  yp of grss.]
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I'm now going to ask the question:

What's with all the \baction in your regular expression?

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