Is there a way to refine the search so you have the option of looking for all of the specified words, as opposed to any one of the specified words? If I’m trying to find something about, say, Dancing With The Stars or American Ninja Warrior, that would help a lot.
Also, how about a way to search for a multiple-word phrase that has ONLY the complete phrase? Would also help getting tripped up by the 4-character minimum…say, An Inconvenient Truth, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The board’s search engine is a bit limited, somewhat slow, and acts a bit wonky for some people. It’s not something that is likely to be fixed any time soon either.
You are probably better off using google for these kinds of searches. You can put phrases like “dancing with the stars” in quotes, and add site:straightdope.com and it will return hits from only the straight dope that contain the quoted phrase (dancing with the stars, in this case).
Google also doesn’t mind 3 character words.
More info here: HOWTO: Search the SDMB using Google
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=638051