title: How to use Regex in Google Spreadsheets to mass replace a combination of codes in a column
body: <p>I have a column in a google spreadsheet that is 1000 rows deep in just one column. The row has a number of 2 digit codes from a list of 30.</p>
  
  <p>Heres a sample of 5 rows to what I want their output to be.
  Where mc = "moon", mf = "mother", etc</p>
  
  <pre><code>mc mf md -&gt; moon, mother, mad,
  mc ff -&gt; moon, floof,
  mc ff la in -&gt; moon, floof, lamb, internet,
  mf md -&gt; mother, mad,
  gr mf -&gt; grandma, mother,
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I would like to expand each row, replacing each with the expanded code.</p>
  
  <p>I am using the 'search using regular expressions' in my spreadsheet, and I have these two:</p>
  
  <p>find: </p>
  
  <pre><code> (mc)|(mf)|(md)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>replace: </p>
  
  <pre><code> (?1moon,)(?2mother,)(?3mad,)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So far, it replaces mc mf md with 
      (?1moon,)(?2mother,)(?3mad,)(?1moon,)(?2mother,)(?3mad,)(?1moon,)(?2mother,)(?3mad,)</p>
  
  <p>I understand it as, "find mc or mf or md, and replace it with this string. I want to replace all instances of mc with moon, replace all instances of mf with mother, and find all instances of md as mad.</p>
  
  <p>All of the 30 2-digit codes are unique, so they should never accidently replace eachother. </p>
  
  <p>What am I doing wrong here? Thank you kindly.</p>