Note: if it's been a minute since you last found yourself perusing a Strunk and White grammar manifesto, the oxford comma is, at its base, the last comma in a list of things. So it's the difference between a, b and c and a, b, and c. Me, personally, I'm not an Oxfordian regarding commas in my lists ... but, let's face it, I also have bigger grammar fish to fry with my over-reliance on ellipses and double-dashes, my over-use of partial sentences that start with conjunctions and my over-dependence on interrupting my flow with ([{braces} inside of brackets] inside of parentheses).
Regardless, this post isn't about me and my issues. It's about a dairy company in Maine who just settled an overtime case with its drivers to the tune of 5 million dollars. The legislature there had decided that companies did NOT have to pay overtime in the following situation:
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:
(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.
At issue was whether overtime was exempt for the distribution of the three things (which the drivers did) or for the packing for the distribution of the three things (which the drivers didn't do). The drivers wanted their overtime so they argued that the missing comma clearly meant that it was only the packers and not the distributors who weren't eligible for overtime. The court ruled it wasn't clear enough, and so the dairy company paid up. And then the legislature "fixed" things by replacing all the commas with the most feared punctuation mark (as follows):
The canning; processing; preserving;, freezing; drying; marketing; storing; packing for shipment; or distribution of:
(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.
Commas that cost a heck of a lot of cash -- at least in Maine where you've been replaced by semi-colons to avoid future payouts -- you will not be missed.
THE MOST EXPENSIVE COMMA EVER?:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/oxford-comma-maine.html
A QUICK PRIMER ON THE OXFORD COMMA:
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/what-is-the-oxford-comma-and-why-do-people-care-so-much-about-it/
#GRAMMARLIVESMATTER:
https://www.vappingo.com/word-blog/40-ridiculously-cringeworthy-mistakes-that-prove-punctuation-does-matter/
