From the Department of Wait, What: Do you remember the 2017 court case in which the absence of an Oxford comma (or serial comma) was crucial? The section of the Maine law at issue in that case has been amended in an unusually ungainly way: by the addition not of one comma but of eight semicolons.
Before:
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:After:
(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.
The canning; processing; preserving; freezing; drying; marketing; storing; packing for shipment; or distributing of:What I would consider a real improvement:
(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment, or distributing of:Replacing the semicolons is common (or comma) sense. Replacing and with or forestalls the persnickety argument that the provision (which governs overtime pay) applies to work with meat and fish products or to work with all three categories of foodstuffs. The legislature did get something right in changing distribution to distributing: the new word lines up with the other gerunds.
(1) agricultural produce,
(2) meat or fish products, or
(3) perishable foods.