$query =~ s/\s+/ /g ;      # that's the whitespace
  $query =~ s/\A\s// ;       # strip leading
  $query =~ s/\s\Z// ;       # strip trailing

  $query = lc($query) ;      # all lower case

  $query =~ s/(["'])((?:\\\1|\1\1|.)*?)\1/mash_s($1, $2)/eg ;
                             # Eliminate separators from quoted strings

  sub mash_s {
    my ($q, $s) = @_ ;
    $s =~ tr/0-9a-z/\\/c ;
    return $q.$s.$q ;
  } ;