Not quite.
A few, years, ago, the subject, barely, interested me, but in, common, with many people, my age, I, have, now, seen, the light.
-FrL-
A few years ago, the subject barely interested me, but in common with many people my age, I have now seen the light.
A few years ago the subject barely interested me but, in common with many people my age, I have now seen the light.
That’s where I’d put them. Today. I will usually hold off putting in a comma unless something absolutely, positively needs one, and your sentence would be understandable without one, but commas would make it easier to read.
Colophon is saying that if you remove the part highlighted in red, the parenthetic part, you end up with the incorrect
A few years ago, the subject barely interested me I have now seen the light.
in the second case.
A few years ago the subject barely interested me, but, in common with many people my age, I have now seen the light.
A few years ago the subject barely interested me, but in common with many people my age I have now seen the light.
ETA: I’m honored to say the same thing as twickster!
To me, it depends on how much you want to emphasize the importance of the fact that ‘many people your age’ are interested in the subject.
I think the comma after ‘me’ and after ‘age’ have to be there, BUT, and this is important part, it depends on how much weight you actually want to put into the parenthetic part.
A comma after ‘ago’ just seems awkward and unnecessary.
A few years ago the subject barely interested me, but, in common with many people my age, I have now seen the light.
If it were for something that really, really, really mattered, I’d look it up. But for less formal writing, that’s how the commas feel they should be placed.
ETA: I agree with Frylock’s final spoiler.
At a minimum, I would put a comma between the “me” and the “but.” Two long independent clauses not separated by a comma drive me nuts. Is it really acceptable to omit that comma? If proofreading, I would definitely insert that comma.
The other two I could live without. My stylistic tastes tend to be somewhere between open and closed punctuation. I don’t like the heavy comma and semi-colon use of yore, but I also don’t like complete minimalism. In the sentence above, my instinct would actually be to punctuate it with the four commas. I would be most likely to omit the first comma, if any.
[Spoiler]You didn’t specifically ask about other punctuation, but I felt compelled to insert a semicolon. Thus, the edited sentence reads:
“A few years ago, the subject barely interested me; but, in common with many people my age, I have now seen the light.”[/Spoiler]
[Spoiler]I substituted some more specific clauses, and came up with this:
“I used to drive to work, but since the price of gas went over $4 a gallon, I now walk.”
If I had to pick one of the two choices you deem more acceptable than that, I’d go with the second one. “I used to drive but, now I walk” just looks wrong to me.
[/spoiler]
A few years ago the subject barely interested me, but, in common with many people my age, I have now seen the light.
Joe
A few years ago the subject barely interested me, but in common with many people my age, I have now seen the light.
I only have that second comma there because I feel like I need to stop the awkward flow of “but in common with.” I could do with or without it if you changed “in common with” with “like.”
I like “But” at the start of a sentence even less than I like “However.”