function string.split(str, find, tbl)
	split = tbl or {}
	local p = 0
	local continue = true
	while continue do
		word = string.sub(str,p,string.find(str,find,p+1,-1))
		table.insert(split,word)
		if string.find(str,find,p) then
			str = string.sub(str,p)
			p = string.find(str,find,p)  
			continue = true
			p = p + 1
		else
			continue = false
		end
	end
	return split
end

function strip_symbols(str)
	local symbol_table = "'~()!?:></.,\t…"
	for i=1, #symbol_table do
		while string.find(str, "%"..string.sub(symbol_table,i,i)) do
			str = string.gsub(str, "%"..string.sub(symbol_table,i,i),"")
		end
	end
	return str
end


function find_n_replace(str, find,repl, caution)
	if string.find(str, find) then
		if caution then 
			if not string.find(str, caution, string.find(str, find)+string.len(find)-string.len(caution)) then -- sometimes you want to avoid certain false positives
				str = string.gsub(str,find, repl)
			end
		else
			str = string.gsub(str,find, repl)
		end
	end
	return str
end

function minimum_apostrophes(str)
	local restr = ""
	for i = 1, #str do
		if string.sub(str,i,i) == "'" then -- only makes sense to separate vowels from vowels
			if string.find(string.sub(str,i-1,i-1),"[aeiou]") then
				if string.find(string.sub(str,i+1,i+1),"[aeiou]") then
					restr = restr .. string.sub(str,i,i)
				end
			else -- only consontant meaningful of checking is n'y opposed to ny
				if string.find(string.sub(str,i-1,i-1),"[n]") 
				and string.find(string.sub(str,i+1,i+1),"[y]") then
					restr = restr .. string.sub(str,i,i)
				end
			end 	
		else
			restr = restr .. string.sub(str,i,i)
		end
	end	
	return restr
end