ABSTRACT
One morning in January 2005, I was listening to the beginning of Woman’s Hour;1 it was the lead-in to the opening feature. There were a few teasing sentences about long-gone pop stars, teenage mooning and bedroom walls. ‘Who was yours?’ asked Jenni Murray, and added alluringly: ‘Mine was Elvis’. We can all relate to this, she seemed to be saying, and there were a few more suggestions for faces that might have been stuck above the bed by erstwhile girls of post-Elvis generations – the Beatles, David Cassidy, and possibly Donny Osmond. Then finally, end of build up, out it came: ‘Let’s deconstruct the pin-up!’ The word was articulated with such bravura and such relish that you couldn’t but want to follow her. Any deconstructing that sultry voice was about to speak was good enough for me. Ears pinned, I forgot my usual academic twitchiness about the word coming to be used as a simple alternative to ordinary ones like ‘analyse’ or ‘think about’. Here was a happy showcasing of a bold, strong, glamorous word: deconstruct as pure phonic pleasure, all voice, all signifier, without any special historical or technical meaning.
