 Much of Stirner’s prose—crowded with aphorisms, emphases, and hyperbole—appears calculated to disconcert. Most striking, perhaps, is the use of word play. Rather than reach a conclusion through the conventional use of argument, Stirner often approaches a claim that he wishes to endorse by exploiting words with related etymologies or formal similarities. For example, he associates words for property (such as “Eigentum”) with words connoting distinctive individual characteristics (such as “Eigenheit”) in order to promote the claim that property is expressive of selfhood. (Stirner’s account of egoistic property—see 2.4 below—gives this otherwise orthodox-looking Hegelian claim a distinctive twist.)