Oxford comma

An Oxford comma is a comma that precedes the words and or or, when those conjunctions come before the final item in a list of three or more words. Confusing? Here's an example:

Teams that suck: Cowboys, Mavs, and Rangers.

The Oxford comma is the one right after Mavs. Some people would choose to write it like this:

Teams that suck: Cowboys, Mavs and Rangers.

These two sentences aren't so hard to understand, but take a look at this one:

...Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.

The writer of this piece meant to say that there were three people involved, but the unsuspecting reader would think that the writer was being a jackass in saying that Mandela is an ancient deity who likes to stick things up his vagina (don't judge). It would be easier if the writer had just inserted a comma after the word demigod. That may not eliminate all potential confusion, however. If the sentence were:

...Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod, and a dildo collector.

then one might suppose that the writer thinks Mandela is an 800-year-old demigod, although he would be excluded from the possibility of being a dildo collector.

My take: use the fucking Oxford comma. It saves so much trouble. Even in the last example, who the hell would seriously believe that the author wants to say that Mandela is a demigod? It just gets to common sense when small ambiguities like that occur.