Now that I go several times a day through the most recent news about the crisis in Ukraine, I cannot but notice a phenomenon that marks contemporary writing: single-sentence paragraphs. In addition, sentences themselves are getting shorter and shorter. Complex sentences seem to be avoided like the plague. Even the best among the news services available today suffer from all these faults. Returning to paragraphs, they have been getting ever shorter, but now they are as short as they can possibly get. A single sentence on a particular theme is apparently all that today’s journalists can muster. Besides, they know perfectly well that most of their readers are likely to skip longer paragraphs altogether. Several sentences on the same theme are beyond their capabilities, anyhow. Thus I cannot but also wonder what is in store for sentences with all their parts. How long will complex sentences with several independent and dependent clauses survive? What will become of the customary subject and predicate? And what about punctuation? The way things are shaping, all we will read in not so distant future will be simple lists with essential facts only. Time and place, number of dead on both sides, weapons used… Single-sentence paragraphs will become a fond memory of times long past.

Addendum (March 18, 2016)

If I go through the news these days, it is once a fortnight at most, and on a specific subject only, but I have noticed an interesting change in a number of news services available on the World Wide Web: single-sentence paragraphs are now interspersed with video clips. There is a whole bunch of clips in every article. The bulk of them are very short—say, a minute or two at most. They need to be clicked to come alive, but they can also be skipped if they are not of interest. As for the remaining sentences, they merely introduce the clips. The only sentences that are still reminiscent of the past open and close articles, if that term makes any sense any longer. By now, they are news items only.