paragraphs, are they gone?

Agreed.



I disagree, E. That's an old canard. The grammar of speech is not the grammar of writing and the grammar that's used for writing is not the test for grammaticality.

It's exceedingly difficult for people to not speak grammatically. The grammatical patterns of English are so set in our mental grammars that it places a heavy tax upon the brain to speak in an ungrammatical fashion.



I agree, but again, paragraph breaks have nothing to do with grammar.

I left them in a book, if I remember correctly..


I see the no-paragraph type of writing most in the a2k relationships questions. Most often, the poster has a spelling problem or grammar problem too, so I figure the person is not clear on how to write with paragraphs. In the post I linked to, though, I was struck by how generally ok the post was, except for the lack of paragraphs. I wasn't serious re it being somehow 'gaming', but really perplexed about what seemed to me to be a choice not to use paragraphing.

In my old fashioned schooling back in days of yore, I learned about paragraphs as a way to move on to an additional thought, or set of thoughts, somewhat separate from or explanatory of the thoughts in the previous set of sentences... so, sort of like 'thought blocks'. Making paragraphs were part of making sense, or trying to, and really a function of thinking: not a style issue so much as a kind of clarity.