Word-Logography

Logography is used in Derrida's Pharmacia as a way to express the futility in viewing the process of writing as a process of truth-telling, "The logographer, in the strictest sense, is a ghost writer who composes speeches for use by litigants, speeches which he himself does not pronounce, which he does not attend, (...) and which produce their effects in his absence" ( Derrida 68). Derrida is using this example to break down the walls of the preconceived ideas of pure, truthful writing. The Oxford English Dictionary defines logography as "A method of long-hand reporting, in which several reporters were employed, each taking down a few words in succession." This image falls in line with writing being a process of collective subjectivity rather than a single definite product. A president who gives a speech he or she didn't write is performing for an audience. They aren't speaking their own personal truth or any truth at all, they are merely adopting a collective of ideas that were written with his agenda in mind. The writer of the speech was forced to bypass his own ideas and put the text into the format of the speaker, which creates a loss of credibility through the dilution.