When I try to do so it will only bring up threads that contain the individual words, which may be in the thousands. Using the AND modifier does not work.
To the best of my knowledge that is, unfortunately, correct.
I’ll shoot this thread off to ATMB to see if someone better informed can help you out.
Does putting it in quotes not work?
Nope.
http://www.boardreader.com/ can be searched for phrases. Put the phrase in quotation marks. Use the search term straightdope to limit the results to the SDMB.
N.B. Boardreader only crawls around here every month or so, so don’t expect to find anything very recent on boardreader.