I'm not convinced that doing global searches outside of the quotes is not going to result in gibberish but it is worth a try.

I would start by building a list with the search terms followed by their replace terms
is was
run ran
creep crept
do did

I can't do a macro right now but if you want to supply a larger list of terms with a sample of your document content then I can have a look at it tomorrow or over the weekend.

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia