# A, An and The exclusion
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/a-an-and-the-exclusion/67296
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [January 27, 2025, 10:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/a-an-and-the-exclusion/67296 "2025-01-27T22:54:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Gat3pm](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Gat3pm)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 10:54pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/a-an-and-the-exclusion/67296/1 "2025-01-27T22:54:06Z")
Have this to remove a, an or the but want to keep them if not the first word of the string,
Like in "2 The Hard Way" I would want to keep "The" in place in this instance
or
Like in "Maybe A Dingo Ate Your Baby" I would want to keep "A" in place in this instance
What would I add to this expression to keep a, an or the when not the first word?
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### Author:  [@MotleyG](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MotleyG)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 2:21am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/a-an-and-the-exclusion/67296/2 "2025-01-28T02:21:09Z")
This was just recently answered for you here.
> [@Remove a, an and the](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/remove-a-an-and-the/67274/2):
>
> Create an action of the type "Replace with regular expression" for the field with the string (you don't say which it would be) Search string: ^A |The |An Replace with: (leave empty) For more details about regular expressions, see the documentation: I, for myself have abandoned the idea to remove the articles. Otherwise artist names like The The The Band The Duke & the King The Weeknd A Fine Frenzy A Flock of Seagulls A Guy called Gerald A Mountain of One A Tribe called Quest wo…
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### Author:  [@Gat3pm](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Gat3pm)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 2:34am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/a-an-and-the-exclusion/67296/3 "2025-01-28T02:34:22Z")
I only want to take out A, An or The if they are the FIRST word of the string, Other wise I want to keep them in.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 5:42am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/a-an-and-the-exclusion/67296/4 "2025-01-28T05:42:35Z")
> [@Gat3pm](#):
>
> to keep a, an or the when not the first word
Try
`$regexp(%title%,^(A |An |The ),)`
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 7:28am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/a-an-and-the-exclusion/67296/5 "2025-01-28T07:28:27Z")
> [@Gat3pm](#):
>
> Like in "Maybe A Dingo Ate Your Baby" I would want to keep "A" in place in this instance
Your regular expression has only two small errors:
`$regexp(%title%,^A |An |The |,)`
should be - as @ohrenkino says:
`$regexp(%title%,^(A |An |The ),)`
which means:
The pipe symbol | gives you a selection:
A or An or The (all three followed by a space)
The pipe symbol should not be the last character.
The brackets around this selection represent the caption group, which will be replaced if one of the 3 possibilities starts `^` as the first character(s) of the line.
The matched possibility will be replaced with nothing (nothing is given after the comma).
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### Author:  [@Gat3pm](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Gat3pm)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 6:23pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/a-an-and-the-exclusion/67296/6 "2025-01-28T18:23:57Z")
Thank You for explaining It. Trying to learn off other peoples posts is hard a lot of the time. The end results of what it should look like are not provided. I am one of those people that has to see it to understand it, especially if I am unfamiliar with the context of what is happening.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/a-an-and-the-exclusion/67296/7 "2025-01-28T18:25:43Z")
You can test scripting functions including $regexp() in Convert\>Tag-Tag.
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2025, 6:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/a-an-and-the-exclusion/67296/8 "2025-02-27T18:26:06Z")
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