Problem with FULLTEXT - how to exclude the only search word?

[James H]

The following query produces no results:

SELECT * from items WHERE MATCH(items.name) AGAINST('-unwantedWord' IN BOOLEAN MODE);

I know the documentation predicts that will happen, but (as may be apparent) I'm wanting to select all rows that don't have the word 'unwantedWord' in the 'name' field - i.e., the FULLTEXT equivalent of something like SELECT * from items WHERE items.name not like '% unwantedWord %';

Surely, I'm not the only one that needs to do this - is it possible to achieve with FULLTEXT?!

Cheers,
James