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.

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.