How can I filter stoppwords

Hi,

I need to filter stopp words from book titles.

Example:
<xmlfile>
<book>
   <title>The Ants</title>
   <id>1234</id>
</book>
<book>
   <title>Lifestyle</title>
   <id>1235</id>
</book>
</xmlfile>

I tried to do it with <xsl:value-of select="substring-after(title,'The')"/>
I was successfull as regards to "The Ants", but in all cases where there
exists no stopp word, the substring function returns an empty string.

Does anybody know another way to filter stopp words? 
How do you XSL-create a sort criterion? 
How can I tell the what-so-ever-function that there is not only one stopp
word, but a list of such words to be stripped from the beginning (!!!) of
titles.

Thanks a lot.
Barbara
---
Barbara Sellmer-Bruels
Klopotek & Partner GmbH - Berlin
E-Commerce


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