Question

what clues can you use to determine the meaning of deconstructing in the sentence. "It only gets worse when you begin deconstructing the purpose of such holidays"? consider both your knowledge of roots and prefixes and the context

Answer 1

You can use the clues "It only gets worse" and "the purpose of holidays" to infer the definition of the word. 

Also, the prefix "de" means "do the opposite of", and "construct" means, to put something together, or build it up. 

So you can infer that "deconstruct" means to take apart or break. 



Hope this wasn't too confusing, comment the correct answer.