Imagine trying to tell someone how to get to your home without using the name of your street, or for that matter, the names of any other nearby streets. That challenge makes you realize just how much we take for granted the words we use to tell someone our location. The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power examines the many different implications of street addresses, including the struggle to reckon with street names in post-Nazi Germany, the controversy over avenues named for Confederate generals, the vanity addresses available for a price in New York City, the implications of being unaddressed when applying for a job or bank loan, and much more. Written by Deirdre Mask, it’s a wide-ranging and enlightening read. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Communicating With Addresses — and Why Not Having an Address Is a Problem”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. Take a moment and imagine trying to tell someone how to get to your home without using the name of your street, or for that matter, the names of any streets within a 10-mile radius. I’ve been thinking a lot about that challenge ever since reading a fantastic book by Deirdre Masque. It’s called The Address Book, What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power. Most households in the world don’t have street addresses.
In fact, that’s the way it was for much of human history. As late as the 19th century, the Royal Postal Service in Britain managed to deliver the occasional letter with a less than precise address on the envelope, like you might send a letter to so-and-so who lives in the cottage by the forest. Or my favorite was a letter that was addressed to someone in Scotland that read, to my sister Jean, up the cannon gate, down a close, Edinburgh. She has a wooden leg. Just in case you weren’t sure which Jean it was.
But Grant, it makes you realize how much we take for granted the words we use to tell people where we are, and also the immense power and effect of those names, you know, like naming streets after Confederate generals, for example. And it’s a fascinating look at history and society and language through this particular lens of addresses. I’ve never read a book like this before.
Yeah, I’ve read the first few chapters of the book at your recommendation, and I agree with you. This is a fantastic book, and I am struck by how many services that we receive are attached to having a physical address. I’m reminded of the people trying to get their stimulus checks in the United States, but being unable to because they were homeless. They had no fixed abode, as they put it in Europe. They just could not get the very money they needed to rescue themselves from their miserable situation.
Right. In fact, she’s got a whole chapter about homelessness and what the lack of an address means for people. I mean, you can’t apply for most jobs without being able to put your address on the application. And she raises a fascinating question in this book. Little kids can send a letter to Santa, care of the North Pole, and somebody from the postal service will end up answering that letter eventually. And she says, if Santa can have a fake address, why can’t the homeless? You know, why can’t we assign addresses in some shape or fashion to help people get over that one little hump? And that’s just one of many, many fascinating chapters in this book.
She talks in there about Nelson Mandela’s reluctance to change apartheid-era street names in South Africa after he became president. And she talks about modern Germany’s struggle to come to terms with street names honoring Jews that were changed under the Nazi era. And just the whole question that one of the interviewees in the book raises about how do we remember and say the past happened without looking as if we are celebrating that past?
Right. Because there’s layers of this history. Even if these names are problematic because of the beliefs or characteristics of the people they were named for, they do connect us to what happened and what we sprang from and who we were as a people, a society, a community.
Right. How do you make those decisions? And then there’s a whole chapter about the vanity addresses in New York City, like One Park Avenue. I didn’t realize that there were addresses in New York City that are available for a price, even though they might not be entirely accurate in terms of location because they have a certain amount of prestige to them.
It’s just a fascinating book, as I said, that lets you look at the world through a lens that I’ve never looked at it through before. And this book, again, by Deirdre Mask is called The Address Book, What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power.
And I should mention, too, that Grant, you’ve already seen in her book. She’s a very sure-footed writer.
Absolutely. She’s very inquisitive, and I share her delight in learning all kinds of things about this topic.
Absolutely. It’s a great read. We both recommend the book. We’ll link to it on our website.
If you’re reading something fantastic that you think we should read and share with everyone else, send us a note, words@waywordradio.org, or tell us on Twitter @wayword.
