DesiLinguist - 2011-02-01

I have been trying to find help with negation but I can't find anything in the O'reilly book or even online. Plus the online documentation ("How to use PyParsing" or even the class documentation) is no longer accessible.

Here's what I would like to do. I want to match a bunch of verbs (like assert, state, argue etc.). However, in the data "states" occurs a lot with the word "united". Therefore, I would like to prevent that particular match for "states" if the word "united" occurs before it. So. I thought I could do something along the lines of the idea Paul mentioned here:
http://bytes.com/topic/python/answers/763719-regular-expression-negate-word-not-character

However, 'ignore()' doesn't seem to work. Here's my complication expression:

assertVerb = Literal("points out") | Literal("point out") | oneOf("asserts assert \
                    claims claim \
                    writes write \
                    assumes assume \
                    contends contend \
                    alleges allege \
                    considers consider \
                    indicates indicate \
                    argues argue \
                    suggests suggest \
                    declares declare \
                    ignores ignore \
                    overlooks overlook \
                    generalizes generalize \
                    advocates advocate \
                    maintains maintain \
                    feels feel \
                    states state \
                    thinks think \
                    holds hold")

and here's what I did for the ignore:
assertVerb.ignore(Literal("united") + Literal("states"))

Another complicating thing is that this assertVerb element participates in a more complex element with other elements around it. Any idea what I am doing wrong?

Thanks in advance!