use strict;
my $str = 'at the coast will reach the Douglas County coast';
my $regex = qr~\b(?:county coast|at the|grants pass)\b(*SKIP)(*F)|\b(?:coast|the|pass)\b~ip;
my $subst = '<b>$0</b>';
my $result = $str =~ s~$regex~$subst~rg;
print "The result of the substitution is' $result\n";
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html