You could do it with the loop, as you've hinted: 

foreach my $stopword (@stop_words)
{
    $date =~ s/\b$stopword\b//g;
}

[download]
Another possibility is to combine the words into a single regex, and apply it once (note, this is untested): 
my $stop_pat = '\b(' . join('|', @stop_words) . ')\b';
$data =~ s/$stop_pat//g;

[download]
Whether that will be faster depends a lot on the number of words, their lengths, and the length of the input string. Give each a try. You may also want to see if using the study function improves things any.

HTH

In reply to Re: Using a variable as pattern in substitution by VSarkiss
in thread Using a variable as pattern in substitution by stew

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