/^[^A-Za-z\-\ ]+$/ will only match if the string contains only bad characters. 

sub validate_text
{
        my ($text) = @_;

        if ($text =~ s/[^A-Za-z0-9 -]+//g) {
                print "Funny business fixed\n";
        } else {
                print "Text was already clean\n";
        }

        return $text;
}

my $validated = validate_text($test1);

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In reply to Re: Inverse regexes for input validation by ikegami
in thread Inverse regexes for input validation by Anonymous Monk

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