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