my $x = "the quick brown fox";
if ($x =~ /^brown/) {print "found 'brown'\n"} #will fail since the 
        # string does not start brown

if ($x =~ /^THE/i) {print "will match\n"} #start of string and 
        # case insensitive so matches

if ($x =~ /fox$/i) {print "will match\n"} #the string does indeed end fox