X, Y, and Z ... The Oxford Comma, or How I Learned to Love Zucchini

I avoided using the Oxford comma for years because of its association with my not-very-alma mater. When I began life again as a copy editor, however, I realized that this item of punctuation is actually much more widespread in North America than it is in the UK. For a while I coped by calling it by its other name, the serial comma; now that I am approaching 50, I am learning to be more easy-going about punctuational nomenclature. This week, as the New York Times reports,

Ending a case that electrified punctuation pedants, grammar goons and comma connoisseurs, Oakhurst Dairy settled an overtime dispute with its driver that hinged entirely on the lack of an Oxford comma in state law.

The eagle-eyed will notice from this sentence that the Times also eschews the Oxford comma—rather nonchalant, considering it cost the dairy $5 million to settle the case.

My late-in-life embrace of the comma after learning to call it by another name is associated in my mind with my discovery, after moving to Canada from Britain, that the zucchini is actually a delicious vegetable! Previously, I had encountered it as courgette, diced and boiled grey in a concoction that my college dining hall dared to call ratatouille.

I still don't eat ratatouille. To my knowledge, it has no other name.