We build the regex from the word using \s* in between the letters.

my $word = "perlmonk";

my $re = join('\s*',$word =~ /\w/g);

my $qre = qr/$re/;

while (<DATA>) {

  my $count = () = /$qre/g;

  print "$count == $_";
}

__DATA__
perlmonk perlmonk perlmonk
perl m onk p erlmonk per lm onk per lm onk
[download]

Updated: actually answered question this time.

--
Steve Marvell