<?php
var_dump(firstWordPosition('Will company any do any job, (are there any)?', 'any'));
var_dump(firstWordPosition('Will *any* company do *any* job, (are there any)?', 'any'));
function firstWordPosition($str, $word) {
// There are others, maybe also pass this in or array_merge() for more control.
$nonchars = ["'",'"','.',',','!','?','(',')','^','$','#','\n','\r\n','\t',];
// You could also do a strpos() with an if and another argument passed in.
// Note that we're padding the $str to with spaces to match begin/end.
$pos = stripos(str_replace($nonchars, ' ', " $str "), " $word ");
// Have to account for the for-space on " $str ".
return $pos ? $pos - 1: false;
}