The word on the street is.....


Something I was thinking about the other evening whilst reading the work of Derrida in regards to his idea of deconstruction and 'web of words'. I think of it as an etymological equivalent of six degrees of separation where by constantly deconstructing and tracing back to the origin of the particular word in question. The thing is, it is never ending until all becomes meaningless in the end. It is an enormous word cycle constantly spinning.

For me it was the word Empirical, which means, based on experience or observation rather than theory. In turn I investigated the origins of the word 'theory' and interestingly it derives from the Greek word 'theorein' meaning to speculate, consider, look at. Or 'Thea' meaning a view and 'Horan' meaning to see.

In a way it got me thinking of several things. That at times due to this cycle, we could more or less be contradicting ourselves every time we speak or how nothing actually means 100% what we think it should mean, there's always a contradiction waiting to ambush that very word as it walks along the path of origins.