Janet calls from Aiken, South Carolina, to say that her father used to ask Have you dressed your bed? meaning “Have you made your bed?” The word dress likely derives from Latin dirigere, meaning “to straighten” or “to guide,” the source of the English noun and verb address. Today dress has several meanings involving the idea of “arranging,” “preparing,” or “setting up,” found in such phrases as dress oneself, dress a salad, dress troops. In the past, the verb to dress was also used with reference to cultivating land or plants and even repairing a clock. In parts of the eastern United States, the phrase dress the table means “set the table,” and dress the bed fits into that traditional use of dress, both in parts of the U.S. as well as parts of the United Kingdom. In fact, the term dress clothes is sometimes used to mean “bedsheets.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Dressing the Bed Means Making the Bed”
Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hello, this is Janet Harkins. I’m calling from Aiken, South Carolina.
What’s on your mind today, Janet? Well, I had a question about something my father used to say.
When we would come downstairs in the morning, he would say, have you dressed your bed? Meaning, have we made our beds? And I’ve never heard anybody else use the dressed quite that way.
And where was your father from?
Well, I grew up in Ohio. My father’s heritage was his grandmother was Belgian. So I don’t know if that has anything to do with it or not. But he grew up in Ohio?
Yes.
Well, Janet, there’s a lot that’s more interesting than you might think about the word dress in this sense.
The word dress probably goes all the way back to the Latin word dirigere, which means to straighten or to guide. And in fact, we get our word address or address from that. You know, it directs you someplace.
So this idea of straightening and guiding in English came to also take on the idea of preparing or setting up or arranging. So today you dress yourself to go out in public. You dress potato salad with chopped parsley or you dress a wound or you talk about dressing troops.
And historically, the word dress has had all kinds of different meanings. In the past, people would talk about dressing land or dressing plants, which meant to cultivate them. Or you could even dress a clock, which would mean to repair the clock or to clean it.
In parts of the United States, people have also used this word dress in relation to setting up things like on the table. Dress the table is something that you might hear in West Virginia, Illinois, North Carolina, and also particularly in West Virginia, you’ll hear dress the bed. So it’s not that common, but you can see how it kind of makes sense.
And so that’s why I was curious where your dad was from. I’m interested in the Belgian connection.
That’s very interesting that dress is used in so many ways. I never really thought about that when dressing a salad, that that was the same derivative.
Right, dressing, exactly.
There are a few sources that say that dress the bed is used in parts of the United Kingdom as well. And even in the U.S., you can sometimes find the sheets being called dress clothes.
Really?
Yeah.
That’s very interesting.
Yeah, I come to think of it, I think of bed clothes, but that’s weird, isn’t it?
Well, that’s right.
Yeah.
But, yeah, that’s true.
Yeah.
Well, then my father wasn’t as weird as I thought, huh?
No, no. We all have our lovely bits of language.
Well, Janet, thank you so much for that question.
All right. Thank you so much, too.
All right. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Sometimes those everyday household words have the best stories.
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