chadjenofsky: What are your views on the Oxford comma?
I'm going to jump on in this one, because as a bilingual translator, a lot the attitudes towards the Oxford comma really get my back up at times.
The rules I generally tend to observe are the Oxford rule for UK English, which says don't use the serial comma (oh, the irony!), and the Chicago Manual of Style rule for US English, which says that you should use it. I have been known to deviate from the standard from time to time.
I'll use it when it's necessary to eliminate ambiguity or when the last item in the list contains a set phrase that uses a coordinating conjunction like "and" (e.g. black and white), or when the serial comma, and I'll leave it out if it looks shit or is a bit jarring when reading it out loud.
hedwards: That's basically the only case where you need to use the Oxford comma.
Well, no, you absolutely need the comma for any ditransitive verb when you're not appending a direct object predicate, whether leaving the comma out is unintentionally hilarious or not, because the vocative there can still be mistaken for the direct object.
You can just about get away with leaving it out with a strictly intransitive or strictly transitive verb (because you'll either know that no object is expected, or there'll already be a direct object to make it clear that we're not eating grandma, e.g. "Let's eat dinner Grandma!"), even if it is does look sloppy.
That wouldn't be an Oxford comma anyway - that's just a simple comma. An Oxford comma would be "Peter, Paul, and Mary" as opposed to the UK standard of "Peter, Paul and Mary".