I have a list (this is not the real list, but one I can show you to demonstrate what I'm working with) that has comma separated values plus a space. It's actually not even a list yet, it's a string I'll make into a list. 
hi, there, world, how, are you, today?

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That I need to split apart each comma-separated word/phrase and break into a hash. From here I will count unique words, that's the whole object of this.

The question I guess is how to make a $string break and separate everything and place each word or pharse into an array. You'd need to use a foreach but I can't seem to figure out how to set it up. If someone can help with this, I could do the rest.

please do NOT solve this entire thing for me, do NOT post the source code that will split the string and add it to a hash and then count like words. Just help me get started please.

In reply to Comma separated list into a hash by Anonymous Monk

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