return the count

Count the noun phrases in a string. We'll count the number of elements in the list as indicated by commas and semicolons. This might not be a perfect count of the actual number of noun phrases, since we could have commas setting off some other kind of clauses, but it nonetheless will give us a good estimate of the overall complexity of the text, which is what we're really after. The point is that we want to break up the listings if they're long, but combine them into a single sentence if they're short.

Show the combined inventory listing, putting together the raw lists of the items being carried and the items being worn.

we're carrying nothing but wearing some items

Once we've made up our mind about the format, we'll call one of these methods to show the final sentence. These are all separate methods so that the individual formats can be easily tweaked without overriding the whole combined-inventory-listing method.

short lists - combine carried and worn in a single sentence

we have only carried items to report

empty inventory

For 'tall' listings, we'll use the standard listing style, so we need to provide the framing messages for the tall-mode listing.