DOH! Thanks. I tried that b4 and it didn't work, but I just realized what I had wrong. In my 'playing around' with things I had changed /$words/ to /^$words/ then to /^^$words$/ not thinking that when the $words alternate list is placed inside [] the '|' is taken literaly and not as a seperator for the alternates.

I just put it as /^$words$/ and things seem to be working fine.

Thanks for your help and pointing out my 'lil mistke.