Certainly, but I'd just hand use a real list in the first place. Here's how to negate the wrong use of qw() you describe,

sub import {
    my $class = shift;
    my @list = split /,/, join ' ', @_ if @_;
    # ...
}
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but don't do that. You sound like you are cargo-culting qw//.

After Compline,
Zaxo