These three lines bug me:

$text =~ s/[^A-z\.\,\;\-\n\'\ \?\"0-9\$\:]//g;
$text =~ s/\n/ /g;
while ($text =~ s/\s\s/ /g) {};
[download]

I would likely do those as:

$text =~ tr/A-z0-9.,;'?!":$\n\t\r -//dc;
$text =~ s/\s+/ /g;
[download]

I also added in "!" and "\t\r" since it seems unfair to rip tabs and Mac/PC returns out. The while thing is really evil and smells of removed code. =)

Update: fixed where I had $test rather than $text. Lysdexics of the world, Untie!

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