Try giving it a batch of characters to choose from enclosed with square brackets?
Code:
(?<!”[\s\w\.]+)said\. “
Although I have a feeling that there is a much simpler way to accomplish what you are trying to do instead of this very narrow regex. What is your end goal??
Edit:
You might even try tokenizing the \. in the negative look behind pattern to catch any punctuation \p{P} instead of just periods.
Code:
(?<!”[\s\w\p{P}]+)said\. “
Please note: I’m replying on my phone after spending a very sleepless night with a grandson who is sprouting some molars … please
test it and forgive any errors…
