Episode notes
For Want of a Comma: The Five-Million-Dollar Oxford Fight and a Door You Can Spell
Episode 16 of The Office 360 Unfiltered. A long-debated topic, told as a story you actually want to finish.
For more than a century people have split families, style guides, and comment sections over the Oxford comma — that last comma in a list, the one before “and.” Newspapers often skip it. Oxford University Press kept it. A rock band asked who even cares. Then a line of milk trucks in Maine said they did.
Oakhurst Dairy delivery drivers sued over Maine’s overtime exemption: “packing for shipment or distribution.” No comma after shipment. Drivers said they distribute, they do not pack, so they are owed overtime. The dairy said use common sense. A lower court sided with the dairy. In March 2017 the First Circuit opened with “For want of a comma, we have this case,” found the line ambiguous, and read the fog in favor of the workers. In February 2018 the dairy put five million dollars on the table. Maine later rewrote the list with semicolons. Clarity is cheaper than a settlement.
Same muscle as your author site. If a stranger has to decode the page, they leave. Four people, Lisbon to New York, build a house that makes sense in three clicks.
Spell it: the, dash, office, three sixty, dot com. That’s T-H-E, hyphen, office, three sixty, dot com. the-office360.com. Code STUDIO50 — 50% off studio tiers.
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