Sans-comma Questions:
Is it a battered old hat used for canvas fishing?
Does he have two battered canvas fishing hats of which this one is the older of the two?No, that would be his battered old canvas-fishing hat.
> Does he have two battered canvas fishing hats of which this one is the older of the two?
No, that would be his old battered canvas fishing hat.
For instance, even in the case of the old canvas fishing hat, what if it is both "battered" and "large"? Do we call it a battered large hat (which sounds odd, but follows the rule), or a large battered hat? (which sounds better, but then does "battered" take on the new role of material?
Ah, the endless possibilities for quibbling grammarians.
Still, it is nice there are such rules to fall back on to get it right most of the time.
If battered comes after age, perhaps it is material, or at least not opinion.
Folks who study certain rules of grammar may tend to parse sentences differently than others. For example, assuming that adjectives modify the words they immediately precede.
I bet most people assume "antique" is modifying "racing cars", and no one wonders what an antique Italian would drive.
BTW, why couldn't one say "21 green large tables" and not be understood? It suggests that the defining quality is the color, not the size (i.e., not the red large tables, but the green large tables).
Unlike commas, there are only a few situations where semicolons are correctly used.