Commas

A dog with six-pack abs?

Commas, General

I swear that I am not making this up.

I saw an online advertisement yesterday for a physical-exercise program that is supposed to give the user six-pack abs (abdominal muscles).

Near the top of the ad is a photo of the author of the program.

The author’s dog appears in the photo, too.

Now, here is the funny part. The caption beneath the photo was “Craig Ballantyne, and his dog Bally, with 6-pack abs sculpted by Turbulence Training”.

If the advertising copywriter had left out the comma after the dog’s name, then the reader definitely could conclude that the pictured dog is the one whose name is Bally AND that has 6-pack abs — versus any other dog named “Bally” that Mr. Ballantyne might have.

A dog with six-pack abs?

The presence of the comma after the dog’s name in the photo caption essentially turns “with 6-pack abs …” into an aside.

What we cannot say for certain — at least not from the photo caption alone — is who has the six-pack abs.

In other words, we cannot say for certain whether the aside was intended for the man or for the dog.

Given the proximity of “with 6-pack abs …” to the dog’s name, it certainly seems that the advertising copywriter is claiming that the dog is the one with the six-pack abs.

To clearly indicate that Mr. Ballantyne has 6-pack abs, I would rewrite the caption as “Craig Ballantyne with 6-pack abs sculpted by Turbulence Training, accompanied by his dog Bally”.

Or I would leave any mention of the dog out of the caption.

“Due to the graphic nature of this program viewer …”

Commas

I saw this at the beginning of a television program a few days ago.

Problem:
A comma is missing.

Explanation:
The TV program on truTV was titled “World’s Wildest Police Videos”.

The complete warning appeared in all-capital letters at the beginning of the program: “DUE TO THE GRAPHIC NATURE OF THIS PROGRAM VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.”

A line break appeared after the word “NATURE”, and another line break appeared after the word “VIEWER”, so the warning was formatted as follows:

DUE TO THE GRAPHIC NATURE
OF THIS PROGRAM VIEWER
DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

My first reaction to this warning was, “What is a PROGRAM VIEWER?”

Some sign and warning writers mistakenly claim that they can insert line breaks where commas should occur and therefore that a comma is unnecessary with these implied-comma line breaks.

If the warning writer for “World’s Wildest Police Videos” had followed that rule, then he or she would have created a warning that would have been formatted with a line break between “PROGRAM” and “VIEWER”:

DUE TO THE GRAPHIC NATURE
OF THIS PROGRAM
VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

But whoever entered the text for the warning screen could not even claim that he or she was using an implied comma between the word “PROGRAM” and the word “VIEWER”.

I believe that the warning writer was unaware of a basic principle about commas, which is that they indicate pauses. I otherwise could not explain how the writer could have read the warning aloud and not noticed that a comma was missing after the word “PROGRAM”.

Solution:
“Due to the graphic nature of this program, viewer …”

“… held in captivity for three months, the Taliban execute …”

Commas, Passive Voice

I saw this on a website.

Problem:
The Taliban were not held in captivity for three months.

Explanation:
The full sentence was “After being held in captivity for three months, the Taliban execute a local official when their demands are not met.”

The sentence appeared at a website that tracks Islamic terror attacks.

This sentence documented an attack — by the Taliban, not ON the Taliban — that was purported to have occurred in Kunar, Afghanistan, on 22 November 2008.

The problem with the sentence is that “the Taliban” immediately follows the comma-terminated “After being held in captivity for three months” and therefore implies to the reader that the Taliban were held in captivity for three months.

I usually appreciate the use of active voice instead of passive voice, but this sentence calls for passive voice after the comma.

In other words, the correct way to leave the “After” clause in place is to say immediately after the comma WHO was executed.

Solution:
“… held in captivity for three months, a local official was executed …”