Why choose a paragraph element for a paragraph?

[asdf]

[snip water under bridge]

I said nothing as bald and unqualified as that at all.

....and I quote (from your post), and in valid context:

"If I knew that a huge chunk of my audience was blind, and I really
wanted to cater for them as a priority, I would have *refashioned*, for
example, my article on prohibition. No, not merely restyled it and no,
not marked it up different. I would have used different words and
different sentences and different chunks in different orders. Different
content! "

Different words, different text, different sentences, different chunks in
different orders... Sounds like different text to me!

[snip more water under bridge]

 

[dorayme]

[snip water under bridge]

I said nothing as bald and unqualified as that at all.

...and I quote (from your post), and in valid context:

You cannot quote context easily, it is something that needs to be
understood.

"If I knew that a huge chunk of my audience was blind, and I really
wanted to cater for them as a priority, I would have *refashioned*, for
example, my article on prohibition. No, not merely restyled it and no,
not marked it up different. I would have used different words and
different sentences and different chunks in different orders. Different
content! "

Different words, different text, different sentences, different chunks in
different orders... Sounds like different text to me!

Yes. And I will address this shortly, as I said. Did you not bother to
read to the bottom where I ended on a conciliatory note?

You know, it is clear to me (my fault surely to an extent) that you
don't understand the context otherwise you would have waited for me to
make good on the challenge I accepted. These things are totally like,
related.

Patience for a while asdf, I accept your challenge to clarify and will
do my best to be as concise as possible. If I just blurt things out now,
you will be none the wiser. I need to think how to get it across to you
without repeating my previous. That is why it is a challenge for me.

 

[dorayme]

"dorayme"

... Please clarify again in clear
concise language.

Forget for a minute, HTML/CSS. Let's go in stages. Feel free to stop at
any time if you get bored. Please do not jump to any conclusions yet.

Alpha has been invited to make a live radio broadcast, a once off with
most people not recording it, of his views on something. He has already
published his views in written form. The experts in radio advise him to
refashion the material to suit the medium. He is given enough time to
simply read his paper out as it is, no problem with straight time, but
he is advised that there are many issues to do with the peculiar nature
of radio listening that need to be specially addressed. He is helped to
do this.

Do you understand how words that are in the one version might be missing
from the other or that the radio version might have some additional
words and paragraphs. That there could be significant differences n
actual text and order of text to suit.

Indicate what some of these differences might be so I know you
understand what I am saying just here and now. Nothing to do with
HTML/CSS/Web. If you are not happy to do this or want to rush to
conclusions, we can simply stop and leave it. Up to you.

The problem in communication on usenet is that people need to understand
and agree to certain background assumptions. You are making me think
more seriously about why this is such a difficult matter. It may simply
be that I assume a whole lot of stuff that is simply not something you
have ever taken an interest in.

Is there anything (apart from where I am going with it) that is puzzling
or surprising in what I have said above?

This may look patronising. But you might be charitable enough to see it
as seeking common ground. Always the bedrock of healthy debate.

Say some things, expand on the theme I outline above to let me know we
are seeing some basic things eye to camer... I mean eye. Say what you
imagine some of the things the radio experts might advise.

Please do not relate it to website making yet in any shape or form for
the moment. I will come to that.

 

[asdf]

[snip water under bridge]

I think upon reading your original post on the matter, you said that
blind
people need to be presented with different text.

I said nothing as bald and unqualified as that at all.

...and I quote (from your post), and in valid context:

You cannot quote context easily, it is something that needs to be
understood.

Oh, I think this one is pretty clear cut!

Yes. And I will address this shortly, as I said. Did you not bother to
read to the bottom where I ended on a conciliatory note?

That is irrelevent, and you know it to be the case.

You know, it is clear to me (my fault surely to an extent) that you
don't understand the context otherwise you would have waited for me to
make good on the challenge I accepted. These things are totally like,
related.

Patience for a while asdf, I accept your challenge to clarify and will
do my best to be as concise as possible. If I just blurt things out now,
you will be none the wiser. I need to think how to get it across to you
without repeating my previous. That is why it is a challenge for me.

How can you totally deny the quote??? It's very apparent what you said,
which you then denied. It appears to me that it was *you* who ignored the
context when I challenged the notion that sight-impaired viewers do not
*need* different textual content.

Ok. Anyway. I think I'll leave this discussion at this point. It has been so
obfuscated and confused as to be not worth pursuing.

As to the original topic?

Here's a summary of arguments, which I hope clarifies things (not least for
me) a weeny bit:

Simple. A paragraph is a paragraph no matter how you cut it, dice it, stick
it back together with blutack, take a blow torch to it, and then run over
it. A spade is a spade, and not a shovel, even if you paint it red and put
little bows and ribbons all over it. Spades and shovels have different
functional meanings. It is pointless discussing the difference between
spades and shovels. It is almost universally understood what a shovel is
for, and what a spade is for. Discussion of the definition of a paragraph is
similarly fruitless in this arena.

I (and nearly everyone else in the web dev universe) uses a paragraph
element to mark up a paragraph for what it *is* - a paragraph - no more, no
less, and it certainly does *not* have presentation or layout or whatever
you choose to call the visual representation as a piece of markup. Nor does
one need to define what a paragraph is, or to define how a paragraph looks.
That is entirely up to the browser (albeit with the possibility of a few
styling hints from the developer).

What the browser does with it, or how the browser presents it has nothing to
do with HTML (which does nothing more than *describe* - in 'logical'
abstractions - the content). HTML is merely the 'carrier' of instructions
for the browser (including, of course the actual textual content). The
paragraph element on it's own has no presentation, or layout, or whatever
you want to call it, *until* the browser does something with it. It is an
abstraction. It merely labels a chunk of text as being a paragraph.

To use your original analogy:

"Imagining that the paragraph as it exists in the HTML is somehow free of
presentation is like imagining walking out of the house nude knowing the
door is rigged to trigger clothes to magically cover your loveliness."

This is, in fact *exactly* what happens. The HTML is not 'clothed' until the
browser provides some. We as developers have a number of tools and
techniques available to us to instruct the browser how to 'clothe' the
paragraph. And yes, as Dorayme notes, browsers generally have a 'default'
styling for paragraphs, but that does not mean the the paragraph element has
implicit style associated with it at the markup level, it is merely a label,
identifying a chunk of text as a paragraph.

Another part of Dorayme's OP, in answer to his/her rhetorical question of
(and I paraphrase) 'Why use P instead of DIV' (and for my money, this is the
main point):

"As far as I can work out, for no *other* reason than that the P element
is associated in browsers with ready made styles that humans can
recognise as indicating a paragraph. So it saves bother! Easier than
fashioning styles for a DIV. "

This is - in my view - incorrect. Reason? HTML is designed (and this has
been explicitly stated by the W3C) to be
interpreted/rendered/presented/layed out/what-have-you on any number of
different devices, even those yet to be developed or invented. As an
abstraction, it can even be read as data by some automated process - like,
for a common example, a search engine indexer.

To reiterate: We use the P tag because what we are identifying is a
paragraph.

Sure, it *does* save a very minor bit of bother, but that misses the
semantic point entirely.

Essentially, we label paragraphs as such using the paragraph element for the
simple reason that we don't want to confuse the issue at the browser (or
device, or software interpreter) level. We want to call a spade a spade.
Semantically, we want, nay *need*, to indicate that a paragraph is a
paragraph, and a document division is a document division, so that screen
readers, search engine indexers, and software like browsers, *and even human
beings* can all happily interoperate with a minimum of fuss.

Interoperability (amongst other things) is what makes the web useful. We
should try to adhere to it's standards and *expressed intention* of HTML
standards, or we risk the markup we produce becoming an irrelevance. Does
anybody remember the Microsoft 'Blackbird' experiment? It failed. Miserably.
They tried to compete with the web. And charge for it already! Hardly
anybody used it. A suitable analogy would be that they tried to duplicate
the entire public highway network with a network of toll roads (and, as an
aside, thank goodness we don't have to listen to that 'information
superhighway' drivel anymore), but couldn't find enough cars to run on it to
make it worth the expense.

Whether one subscribes to the ideal of 'semantic markup' or not is an
irrelevance. It's the way it is, and becoming more so! . I choose to work
*with* it to my benefit.

And, for the record, I understand your points of view - I really do - and
challenging existing theory is always a good thing, but challenge through
obfuscation and confusion merely leads to frustration, as (embarassingly)
may have been apparent in my previous posts

Thank you Doctor, I feel much better

 

[asdf]

Forget for a minute, HTML/CSS. Let's go in stages. Feel free to stop at
any time if you get bored. Please do not jump to any conclusions yet.

Alpha has been invited to make a live radio broadcast, a once off with
most people not recording it, of his views on something. He has already
published his views in written form. The experts in radio advise him to
refashion the material to suit the medium. He is given enough time to
simply read his paper out as it is, no problem with straight time, but
he is advised that there are many issues to do with the peculiar nature
of radio listening that need to be specially addressed. He is helped to
do this.

Do you understand how words that are in the one version might be missing
from the other or that the radio version might have some additional
words and paragraphs. That there could be significant differences n
actual text and order of text to suit.

Yes, with you so far.

Indicate what some of these differences might be so I know you
understand what I am saying just here and now. Nothing to do with
HTML/CSS/Web. If you are not happy to do this or want to rush to
conclusions, we can simply stop and leave it. Up to you.

The problem in communication on usenet is that people need to understand
and agree to certain background assumptions. You are making me think
more seriously about why this is such a difficult matter. It may simply
be that I assume a whole lot of stuff that is simply not something you
have ever taken an interest in.

Is there anything (apart from where I am going with it) that is puzzling
or surprising in what I have said above?

Not yet... but there's still hope!

This may look patronising. But you might be charitable enough to see it
as seeking common ground. Always the bedrock of healthy debate.

Say some things, expand on the theme I outline above to let me know we
are seeing some basic things eye to camer... I mean eye. Say what you
imagine some of the things the radio experts might advise.

Please do not relate it to website making yet in any shape or form for
the moment. I will come to that.

Ok. Your example is a valid one. Alpha is moving from the medium of text,
into the medium of speech. Fair enough.

....but to pre-empt what I suspect to be your argument...

Text presented via the WWW is *still* fundamentally text, at both the
practical and conceptual level.

 

[dorayme]

Oh, I think this one is pretty clear cut!

Not in the least. You are quite mistaken. A lack of shared background
assumptions and context is often the very heart of trouble when there
are such disagreements and misunderstandings.

That is irrelevent, and you know it to be the case.

Back to your old tricks of being artlessly rude eh? I know it to be the
case eh? Thank you for this asdf.

How can you totally deny the quote???

I did *not* deny it. So here you go again off with unwarranted
assumptions. You want to so quickly rush at everything.

It's very apparent what you said,
which you then denied.

I did *not* deny it. I denied the context was understood by you and
conceded I might do better in making it plainer. Make quite sure you
continue not to understand this, to fullquote and to use a forged email

I (and nearly everyone else in the web dev universe) uses a paragraph
element to mark up a paragraph for what it *is* - a paragraph

That's what I do too. When I want to mark something up as a paragraph, I
use a paragraph element. mkay?

What the browser does with it, or how the browser presents it has nothing to
do with HTML

This is about as untrue as anything can be. What the browsers do with
HTML markup is *everything* to do with why we mark things up in the
first place. It is because we know a fair bit about what browsers do
that we so proceed. It is how new folk learn to use HTML.

You won't wait and so I have to deal with you in this scrappy way! You
are hopping mad with my views and if it makes you feel any better, I
have ordered a dominatrix to beat me up bad later today and send the
bill to you with pictures of my badly wrecked human form. I hope that is
not too presumptuous of me and it gives you satisfaction.

....

To use your original analogy:

"Imagining that the paragraph as it exists in the HTML is somehow free of
presentation is like imagining walking out of the house nude knowing the
door is rigged to trigger clothes to magically cover your loveliness."

This is, in fact *exactly* what happens. The HTML is not 'clothed' until the
browser provides some. We as developers have a number of tools and
techniques available to us to instruct the browser how to 'clothe' the
paragraph. And yes, as Dorayme notes,
browsers generally have a 'default'
styling for paragraphs, but that does not mean the the paragraph element has
implicit style associated with it at the markup level,
it is merely a label,
identifying a chunk of text as a paragraph.

You cannot begin to imagine - in spite of me saying much the same thing
so many times - how I agree with the last bit (I would make a slight
change of phraseology) of your above. It is like music to my anten... to
my ears.

"it is merely a label, identifying a chunk of text as a paragraph."

Exactly! and that is all it is. And we do it because we know what
presentational styles are defaultly (at the very least) associated with
such in browsers.

Another part of Dorayme's OP, in answer to his/her rhetorical question of
(and I paraphrase) 'Why use P instead of DIV' (and for my money, this is the
main point):

"As far as I can work out, for no *other* reason than that the P element
is associated in browsers with ready made styles that humans can
recognise as indicating a paragraph. So it saves bother! Easier than
fashioning styles for a DIV. "

This is - in my view - incorrect. Reason? HTML is designed (and this has
been explicitly stated by the W3C) to be
interpreted/rendered/presented/layed out/what-have-you on any number of
different devices, even those yet to be developed or invented. As an
abstraction, it can even be read as data by some automated process - like,
for a common example, a search engine indexer.

I have conceded this a few times in other threads about search engines
and counting machines (programs to tell us how many paragraphs there are
etc). It does not go against the ideas I have been thinking along.
Should I use one of your hysterical paranoid sentences now like "No, YOU
go look it up"? Remember yours. Good. So go see what I said about
machine understanding and counting of marked instances.

Your point about future browsers is interesting and I should address it.
But I can see you are not in a calm mood. Plus I am sort of now
distracted by the impending visit of the dominitrix you are financing.

To reiterate: We use the P tag because what we are identifying is a
paragraph.

And I thoroughly agree with this! But I do not in any way thoroughly
agree with idea that there is something as clearly understood as human
nudity about some of the spooky ideas I have seen propounded about
abstract paragraphs.

Sure, it *does* save a very minor bit of bother, but that misses the
semantic point entirely.

It is *everything* to do with the semanticity of it. The whole shebang
of the cooperation of browser makers and website language makers is held
together by a giant agreement in complex ways about presentational
matters.

Essentially, we label paragraphs as such using the paragraph element for the
simple reason that we don't want to confuse the issue at the browser (or
device, or software interpreter) level. We want to call a spade a spade.
Semantically, we want, nay *need*, to indicate that a paragraph is a
paragraph, and a document division is a document division, so that screen
readers, search engine indexers, and software like browsers, *and even human
beings* can all happily interoperate with a minimum of fuss.

I agree.

Interoperability (amongst other things) is what makes the web useful.

I agree.

....

Whether one subscribes to the ideal of 'semantic markup' or not is an
irrelevance. It's the way it is, and becoming more so! . I choose to work
*with* it to my benefit.

Me too. What on earth makes you think otherwise?

And, for the record, I understand your points of view - I really do...

Yeah sure. Like, I *really* believe you!

You are a fiery opponent, impetuous and unstoppable. I mean to slow you

 

[dorayme]

You did what was not allowed. sigh...

....

Yes, with you so far.

Are you. I asked if you could just a bit more about this so I can feel
confident.

No reply? Too beneath your dignity or something? Remember, I have taken
all the humiliations you have thrown at me and am still alive and
kicking. So bugger dignity, add to what I have said so I can see that
you thoroughly you grasp this? It gets rocky later on.

Ok. Your example is a valid one. Alpha is moving from the medium of text,
into the medium of speech. Fair enough.

What is fair enough? You can't leave it like this and expect me to have
confidence to go on.

...but to pre-empt what I suspect to be your argument...

To do what I expressly forbad you to do?

Text presented via the WWW is *still* fundamentally text, at both the
practical and conceptual level.

O, what was your expression before, PULLLEEEEAASSE...

 

[asdf]

You did what was not allowed. sigh...

...

Are you. I asked if you could just a bit more about this so I can feel
confident.


No reply? Too beneath your dignity or something? Remember, I have taken
all the humiliations you have thrown at me and am still alive and
kicking. So bugger dignity, add to what I have said so I can see that
you thoroughly you grasp this? It gets rocky later on.



What is fair enough? You can't leave it like this and expect me to have
confidence to go on.


To do what I expressly forbad you to do?

You're not my mother.

O, what was your expression before, PULLLEEEEAASSE...

Ok, forget it.

 

[dorayme]

You're not my mother.

Now that is not quite right pal, it was a dark and stormy evening, it
was 1948, I was young and impressionable, your dad was a handsome
charming man, there was soft music, low lights, some wine, no, a lot of
wine...

 

[asdf]

Now that is not quite right pal, it was a dark and stormy evening, it
was 1948, I was young and impressionable, your dad was a handsome
charming man, there was soft music, low lights, some wine, no, a lot of
wine...

Haha... ok... u win that one, though I'm a weeny bit younger than that!

 

[dorayme]

Haha... ok... u win that one, though I'm a weeny bit younger than that!

Well, there was more than a lot of wine and that maybe explains the
discrepancy... <g>

 

[David Segall]

"Why should a *practical* website maker choose a paragraph element for a
paragraph? As far as I can work out, for no *other* reason than that the
P element is associated in browsers with ready made styles that humans
can recognise as indicating a paragraph."

Why should practical website makers have any other reason than the one I
gave? Is what I gave not sufficient reason? Is not what gave more
transparent, empirical, less spooky, less controversial? Like Poppy, I
take a sunnier view of things and do not see *all* patterning as
something superficial or stylistic but part and parcel in some respects
of the heart of human thought and meaning.

I don't get. You assert that you mark a paragraph as a paragraph so
that it will be "received by an audience for what it is, a paragraph".
Then you claim this is pure coincidence and you marked it as a
paragraph because, as a *practical* website maker you had discovered,

When you go beyond this, as you can see, into abstract and deeper areas,
there is controversy. I have a certain view of what it means to say
something deep down is a paragraph that differs from some other people
here.

Not even Poppy can avoid controversy! Other posters have quarreled
about the meaning of paragraph. Some have even argued that, in some
languages, a paragraph has no meaning and need not be marked up. No
one, especially not you, has denied the existence of a paragraph. With
a little bit of cheating I could provide an example of a paragraph
that should be marked up as a single column, single row, table but
that does not deny the existence of a paragraph.

 

[asdf]

[snip]

I don't get. You assert that you mark a paragraph as a paragraph so
that it will be "received by an audience for what it is, a paragraph".
Then you claim this is pure coincidence and you marked it as a
paragraph because, as a *practical* website maker you had discovered,

When you go beyond this, as you can see, into abstract and deeper areas,
there is controversy. I have a certain view of what it means to say
something deep down is a paragraph that differs from some other people
here.

Read it again. You are confusing what Dorayme said with my response.

[snip]

 

[asdf]

What part of "Please do not relate it to website making yet in any
shape or form for the moment. I will come to that." are you having
trouble understanding? If you want doreme to help you for free,
you have to follow his instructions, which, BTW, were quite
reasonable.

Frankly, I'm not interested in getting 'help' from Dorayme... It's a
continuation of a discussion. Please review the thread. If it doesn't
interest you, so be it.

And shhhh... between you and me, I suspect that Dorayme might *not* be a he.

)))

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

And shhhh... between you and me, I suspect that Dorayme might *not* be
a he.

It's not Dorayme, it's dorayme, and yes, dorayme is female.

 

[dorayme]

Frankly, I'm not interested in getting 'help' from Dorayme... It's a
continuation of a discussion. Please review the thread. If it doesn't
interest you, so be it.

Fine! (as Luigi would say when he was in a bit of a huff)

At least, then, learn to spell my name with a small "d". Where I come
from it is an insult to use a capital for some names except in special
circumstances.

Think about it, my son, why do you suppose your name is asdf? Do the
letters in that look like capitals? When your father and I named you, it
was on my suggestion. He was very naughty in the name he was proposing,
you should be grateful I overruled him.

Please don't be rude to Guy, he is a gentleman and a scholar.

 

[asdf]

Fine! (as Luigi would say when he was in a bit of a huff)

At least, then, learn to spell my name with a small "d". Where I come
from it is an insult to use a capital for some names except in special
circumstances.

Think about it, my son, why do you suppose your name is asdf? Do the
letters in that look like capitals? When your father and I named you, it
was on my suggestion. He was very naughty in the name he was proposing,
you should be grateful I overruled him.

Please don't be rude to Guy, he is a gentleman and a scholar.

I wasn't. He may well be. It doesn't alter the apparent fact that he didn't
read the post correctly before passing comment. I'm sure he's worthy of
respect. I don't know. I merely corrected his miscomprehension.

....and as an English speaker/writer, I was brought up (rightly) that proper
nouns and names should start with a capital letter. It's a hard (but
correct) habit to break. This adolescent obsession with small letters and
numerals in the middle of words I find juvenile and purile. But *sigh* if
you *must* continue this ridiculous and passing fad, then here goes.... Hi
dorayme. Happy now?

asdf? I couldn't give a rat's how you (mis)capitalise it. I really don't
care. This is starting to get tedious. Can we get back to the topic?

I am constantly amazed at how usenet readers feel so strongly that they
*must* have the last say, even if it's utter garbage, and no, that's not a
personal attack ffs. I'd forgotten what a pedantic, 'can't see the wood for
the trees' bunch they really are. They're so busy correcting each others'
spelling and grammatical mistakes and slagging each other off that they more
often than not totally miss the tiny speck of pearl that is sometimes, but
oh so rarely, dropped in here.

You're still not my mother. I suspect that we *may* be siblings, however .

 

[dorayme]

This is starting to get tedious. Can we get back to the topic?

Yes, I am worried about you son, really, you get tired easily, yawn
often. Are you getting enough sleep? Getting enough exercise? Eating
your greens? You need these things to be right to have a robust
attention span.

Get back to the topic? You cannot appreciate background info if you are
going to constantly jump to conclusions and taint the whole thing in the
middle. I asked you to expand on the idea of the incommensurability
between modalities.

You show the jumpy characteristics of many fundamentalists whose
orthodoxy is being threatened. Not even simple things will they allow
without great suspicion if it is put forward by someone that seems to
threaten their comfort zone.

 

[dorayme]

What part of "Please do not relate it to website making yet in any
shape or form for the moment. I will come to that." are you having
trouble understanding? If you want doreme to help you for free,
you have to follow his instructions, which, BTW, were quite
reasonable.

Thank you Guy, a scholar, gentleman, mensch.

One of the things I was hoping to get across was a sense of the *scale*
of the incommensurability between modalities. (Why say something simply
when one can use big words).

In plain English, if I must, I was hoping to get across the
difficulties, sometimes insurmountable, of adapting *content* across
media. Anyone can see some superficial difficulties - and brush them
aside! It is the not so superficial ones that are of interest to me.

 

[dorayme]

I don't get. You assert that you mark a paragraph as a paragraph so
that it will be "received by an audience for what it is, a paragraph".
Then you claim this is pure coincidence and you marked it as a
paragraph because, as a *practical* website maker you had discovered,

I never claimed "pure coincidence"? To my mind, this would be a more apt
caricature of the views of my opponents. It is they who seem to me to
have a magical theory of the relation between content and style. My
idea, I fancy, is a more empirical, transparent one, based on the
workings of the real world.

And I never thought that I had discovered somehow by accident or
experiment that the P tags give the effects they give in browsers. It
was more or less obvious to me from the start. Why? Because I know the
world and I know that if something is meant for paragraphs, the effect
will be to display the patterns I know as paragraphs. You can find out
in a much more succinct way about P tags by reading the HTML 4.01 specs
about the *element*. But you cannot read this spec without *some basic*
understanding of the big network of cooperative facilities that exist
between HTML, CSS, and browsers and how humans work.

You can only do this latter because you already have background
information and experience of paragraph patterning. When you go into an
HTML factory that is a strictly CSS free zone, you turn out products
that you know are going to be used in certain ways by other human
factories. In order to even begin to understand how to operate the
machinery in the HTML factory, you need to have paid a visit to the
'default CSS' factory next door. You need to have visited the browser
factories. And the end device factories do with the products from the
other factories. If you had no idea about these other factories, you
would have no real - or very limited - idea what to do in the HTML
factory. The fact that we don't always know what future devices will be
like in detail is a sideshow. If we had no idea at all, no models to go
on, I think it would be very hard for the practical website maker in
this world as it is, to do this.

Maybe I should take a few steps back. Perhaps I should modify some of my
claims because I can see a certain possible independence. Try to imagine
training a mob of otherwise educated humans who had never known a
browser or even a computer. You just have a training school for mark up.
No CSS! Not even in their lingo. All paper work. They have no idea at
all what it is for. You cannot tell them anything at all about default
style sheets...

What really rich content could you give them?

I will further reflect on this! I am missing Five Easy Pieces, a big old
favourite of mine. But I *have* seen it about 6 times.

Not even Poppy can avoid controversy! Other posters have quarrelled
about the meaning of paragraph. Some have even argued that, in some
languages, a paragraph has no meaning and need not be marked up. No
one, especially not you, has denied the existence of a paragraph. With
a little bit of cheating I could provide an example of a paragraph
that should be marked up as a single column, single row, table but
that does not deny the existence of a paragraph.

David, I do not deny that there are such things as paragraphs in much
the same way that I do not deny that there are facts.

However, without contradiction, I do deny that there are facts as
understood a certain way. I do not think facts form part of the ontology
of our world. They are not extra things to chairs and tables and film
reels. They - at best - supervene on the things that do exist. And the
same is true of paragraphs. They supervene on real live patterns in the
physical world.

To explain this idea of supervenience (well known and variously
controversial in other fields), I would need to know anyone was still
listening or interested!