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It is all just words, or is it?

 My granddaughter sent a message round the family WhatsApp  challenging us to tell a story from the pictures, Emojis.  Needless to say I didn't even know what they represented but the others rose to the challenge and came up with a story that I didn't understand either.  Am I losing the plot?  Or are we losing the English language?  The word 'nuance' is now heard every other sentence when watching the news, politicians or anyone who thinks they know what they are talking about.  Rarely is it used in the right context.  Shops are now shuttered, whether they have shutters or not, because the word 'shutter' has replaced the verb 'to close' and don't get me started on 'uptick' rather than an increase.  It is not just the English language either which is being destroyed, the French tennis WhatsApp group contains so much slang, emojis etc that most of the time I haven't the faintest idea what they are talking about.  I am trying to write messages in perfect French and they are replying with gobbledygook.

There I was in the early hours of this morning watching the Presidential debate.  It was more of a debate than the first one in  that Trump didn't cause chaos by never shutting  up but it wasn't much better for the simple reason that Trump simply cannot tell the truth, lie after lie spilling out of his mouth so frequently that even the fact checkers couldn't keep up.  11 days still to go until the election.  Will it never end?  What's more,  even if he loses he remains in power until 20th January.  They call themselves the greatest democracy in the world but the Americans don't even get to choose, that being left to the electoral college, judges are appointed by Presidents and politicians, and the power of the President is so great that one person can cause chaos all over the world.  Give me the furniture van rolling into Downing Street any day.

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