mod_rewrite and .htaccess again...

Hi,

I would appreciate help on this one.
What I want to do is to translate everything after the main url into a parameter.

for example:

http://www.thesite.com/abc
http://www.thesite.com/bcd
http://www.thesite.com/cde

should all be redirected to

http://www.thesite.com

with the respective end of the url transfered as a parameter. It doesn't matter if it's the parameter name, or the value of some named parameter.

Now, when I've tried to do it myself, all that happens is that I get caught in an infinite loop to the main url, not very surprisingly.
So what I also need is a condition that checks if the url contains a questionmark '?'. In that case the request should not be redirected.

I'm a pure novice to mod_rewrite so I really need help from you guys!

Thanks,

Nick