Try explaining what your
pattern should be, not what it should or shouldn't allow. for example, if i wanted to find lines that have my name in the middle somewhere, i might say
find lines that have
the beginning of the line, followed by
one or more characters, followed by
a space, followed by
the literal "Fred", followed by
a space, followed by
one or more characters.
this would match lines like
I know a guy named Fred who is a father.
This guy Fred is a little strange
but it would not match
Fred has a daughter
The moderator of Meaningless Drivel is Fred.
once I have that, writing the regex gets MUCH easier.