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When I read it, "rubber baby-buggy bumpers" very clearly means the bumpers on the baby bugger are made of rubber.
Ancient-history teacher means a teacher of ancient history.
Now if you want to say the teacher is ancient, well, yer up a crick without a padle if you write it that way. You'll have to change your phrase around. Or use "aged"
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When I read it, "rubber baby-buggy bumpers" very clearly means the bumpers on the baby bugger are made of rubber.
Ah, but it's not how the phrase is put together, but what (you assume) it means. In my original, unhyphenated phrase, there's also the meaning that the bumpers are for a buggy made for rubber babies. It's not the structure or the semantics, but some other kind of real-world knowledge (about babies, buggies, and bumpers) that clues you in on the meaning.
How about "the book on the table under the lamp"? I could mean that the book (which I want to draw your attention to) is on the table under the lamp, as opposed to the table under the skylight. Or that the book is the one of the ones on the table, but particularly the book under the lamp, and not the one next to the jar of marmalade. No hyphen or comma or what-have-you will help you there.
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No argument there, jheem. I'm beginning to think we're talking about two different things, but I'm not quite sure what to call them. 
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I was just trying to demonstrate that things which many take to be simple open and shut cases vis-a-vis language, are usually more difficult once one looks more carefully at the evidence. I, for one, use hyphens and punctuate my sentences, but occasionally somebody says something that send me off down the garden path, which, BTW, is what sentences like "The horse raced by the barn fell" are called in the literature. viz. http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~kbarker/garden-path.html
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I would say "rubber baby-buggy bumpers" but that is only me.
I would say "teacher of Ancient history" because I tend to listen to Fowler.
I have been listening to Sir Ernest Gowers' revised edition of Fowler (not the first edition) since I was graduated from high school ... and I ain't changing editions, no matter what anybody "prefers".
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I have been listening to Sir Ernest Gowers' revised edition of Fowler (not the first edition) since I was graduated from high school ... and I ain't changing editions, no matter what anybody "prefers".Bravo. Good for you! Never trust any kind of grammarian or grammar. Now, I've usually had to read books, but I'm glad they speak to you. And it's entirely up to you whether you listen or not. But here's my deal: just don't tell me what's right by quoting Fowler-Gowers ipse dixit, ad verecundiam, or any way else, and I won't tell you when not to use "ain't" or how many iotas there are in homo(i)ousios.  There are some who pooh-pooh both Fowler's first and Gower's second editions. "The chaos prevailing among writers or printers or both regarding the use of hyphens is discreditable to English education. Since it sufficiently proves by its existence that neither the importance of proper hyphenating nor the way to act about it is commonly known." H W Fowler Modern English Usage, 1st edition, 1926.
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simple open and shut casesI would write "open-and-shut cases" Alas, jheem, I'm all too familiar with garden-path sentences. They're the bane of headline writers.
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I would write "open-and-shut cases" Yes, it should've been hyphenated if both of us were getting paid to post here. You have brought up and excellent example though. The hyphens do nothing in your version. Not a thing! They're just there to fulfill some silly rule. The hyphen in "rubber baby-buggy bumper" does help slightly. But since both phrases are pretty much frozen, I don't think that the hyphen(s) would do much. And if you haven't seen this quiz yet, take it ... http://quizilla.com/users/BaalObsidian/quizzes/How grammatically sound are you?/
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"The horse raced by the barn fell"
What are you saying here?
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What are you saying here?
There was a horse, sombody raced it by the barn, and as it did so it fell. As AnnaStrophic said earlier it's the bane of headline writers. They've also given us the comma qua conjunction: "Smith, Jones Attack Each Other". You can see many more examples of garden path sentences at the URL I cited earlier in this thread.
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