558: dress and address Jun 18, 2016

Gowns, locations, and speeches may not have a lot to do with each other, but they do perhaps hold similar sentiments. The word 'address' was a Middle English verb with the meaning ‘guide, direct’, which created the meaning of directions for physical places as well as ‘direct spoken words to’. The word is from the Latin stem, 'directus' via French. The English word 'dress' shares the same Latin origin, though in Old French 'dresser' took on the meaning, ‘arrange, prepare’.