Forum: Author Hangout

I just stumped reading this:

[...] Pamela, who had a fifteen year-old-son called, Ashley.

To me the comma after called looks utterly wrong, but that may be caused by German being my first language.
I would omit this comma (and the dashes):
[...] Pamela, who had a fifteen year old son called Ashley.
A comma after son would create ambiguity:
[...] Pamela, who had a fifteen year old son, called Ashley.
could mean: Pamela called Ashley (a friend).

Second problem with the original sentence is the use of dashes:

a fifteen year-old-son

There is one fact to add, the author is Australian and stated he used Australian English in his story.

HM.

I would omit this comma (and the dashes):

[...] Pamela, who had a fifteen year old son called Ashley.

A comma after son would create ambiguity:

[…] Pamela, who had a fifteen year old son, called Ashley.

could mean: Pamela called Ashley (a friend).

The sentence you quoted looks wrong to me as well. Your first example is how I would write it.

fifteen year-old-son

In the USA the proper way to write ✍ this is: fifteen-year-old son.

Similarly, there were one-hundred-forty-seven people in the audience for the school play.

[...] Pamela, who had a fifteen year old son, called Ashley.
could mean: Pamela called Ashley (a friend).

Could also mean: Pamela AKA Ashely. AKA=Also Known As.

The comma is completely wrong. I'm oversimplifying the grammar here, but in this situation we're not talking about differentiating clauses so the use and position of the comma actually changes the meaning of the sentence.

Put simply, the comma indicates that the information following it is unnecessary for understanding the sentence.

"She went shopping with her son Ashley."

Means that she has multiple sons and identifies Ashley as the one she went shopping with. The lack of the comma indicates that the name is necessary for understanding the sentence, which would only happen if she has multiple sons.

"She went shopping with her son, Ashley."

Means that she only has the one son. The name is only included to inform the reader who her son is, but knowing the name isn't necessary to understand the sentence.

Also, I'd just remove the word "called" entirely. It's grammatically unnecessary, is only making the sentence more confusing, and sounds artificial because no one actually talks that way. The only reason I'd ever say someone is "called" by a name is if it's a nickname. eg, "This is Christopher, but everyone calls him Chris."

The excerpt is impossible to parse as is to any one satisfactory meaning, thus likely is containing errors. Any inference of what those errors could be requires wider context. It easily could be, for a not yet covered example, that the main thing what's missing could be quotation marks:

[...] Pamela, who had a fifteen-year-old son, called, "Ashley."