Thank you very much for your contribution, Macropod. For sure, I must sound so dumb that you think I cannot do my own thinking, and you need to correct each posting I make.

1. When I wrote “Can you delete this symbol without changing the number of paragraphs?”, of course I was suggesting experimenting with this. If the pesky symbol/character we are talking about can “technically” be deleted without changing the number of paragraphs, then it is a pilcrow symbol inserted as an ordinary printing character. And it can be deleted without changing the number of paragraphs.

2. You are just stating the obvious. Everybody knows that the last non-printing paragraph mark of a document cannot be deleted: In any case, MS Word won’t let you do it!

3. But there can be thousands of non-printing paragraph end marks within a single document. And these non-printing paragraph end marks can be deleted.

4. In most cases, deleting a non-printing paragraph end mark will not bring about the disastrous results that you suggest it would. It simply joins paragraphs that weren't joined previously. In any case, "Ctrl+Z" can quickly repair the damage, if any.

5. In any event, most non-printing paragraph end marks can technically be deleted, if we except the final paragraph mark of a document, and maybe also of a section. Whether it is advisable to do so is another matter. As is the question of why a pilcrow symbol could ruin anybody’s marriage or get anybody so upset…