Well, I volunteer to try.
if ($text =~ m/\s+-\s+/) print "Hyphen in place of a dash.\n";
If this line could find dozen bugs, it's worth using. Even if it won't find all instances.
Congratulations. You've just triggered a false positive on almost every minus sign in existence. (e.g., $1 - 1 = 0$.)
I would love it if what you suggest were possible, but it just isn't. Not when packages feel free to roll their own DSLs for anything.
The recent document publishing efforts at SIAI would not have been possible without the assistance of dedicated volunteers. This new project is the perfect opportunity to help out lesswrong while giving you an excuse to catch up on (or revisit) your reading of some foundational rational thinking material. As an added bonus every post reviewed will save the world with 3.5*epsilon probability.
We need volunteers who are willing to read some sequence posts and have an eye for detail. Anyone interested in contributing should contact me at cameron.taylor [at] singinst [dot] org.
For those more interested in academic papers we also have regular publications (and re-publications) that need proofreading and editing before they are released.