[Boost-users] regex problem: removing two elements in a row?

I want to use boost::regex 1.33.1 and vc7.1 on a WinXp-Sp2 computer to remove common words from a file. I'm encountering a problem which seems related to having two of the common words next to each other. std::string test(" in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth "); boost::regex reg; reg.assign("( and | can | did | the | in | a )"); test = boost::regex_replace(test, reg, " "); cout << test << endl; The result is: " the beginning god created heavens the earth " Am I doing something wrong or leaving out a step? Seems like the above ought to work. It catches one of the occurrences of " the " between " created " and " heavens " but not those immediately after the " in " or " and ".