Monahon, Peter B. wrote :
But, regarding "...MySQL's search engine by default excludes...common words..." YOU'RE RIGHT! A search for the words "the" and "an" not only didn't produce a search result, but also revealed that
see http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-l/2007-October/023931.html for a how-to about avoiding the common words exclusion