regex in plpgsql function

I am using 7.4.1

Basically I am trying to use a regex that will match:

john smith
john r smith
john r. smith

When I use:

siteadmin=# select 'john r. smith' ~ '^\\w+\\s+\\w?\\.?\\s?\\w+$';
?column?
----------
t
(1 row)

all is well but:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION f_tmp(TEXT) RETURNS BOOLEAN AS ' --{{{

BEGIN
RETURN $1 ~ ''^\\w+\\s+\\w?\\.?\\s?\\w+$'';
END;
' language 'plpgsql';

siteadmin=# select f_tmp('john r. smith');
f_tmp
-------
f
(1 row)

makes the same regex seem to behave differently. What am I doing wrong?

culley