Opinion of the Court
We acknowledge that there are circumstances in which a mailing may be “addressed” to the intended recipient at a place other than the individual’s residence or usual place of business. For example, if the person sending the mailing does not know the intended recipient’s current home or business address, the sender might use the intended recipient’s last known address in the hope that the mailing will be forwarded. Or a sender might send a mailing to a third party who is thought to be in a position to ensure that the mailing is ultimately received by the intended recipient. But in the great majority of cases, addressing a mailing to X means placing on the outside of the mailing both X’s name and the address of X’s residence or customary place of work.
Section 1608(a)(3)’s use of the term “dispatched” points in the same direction. To “dispatch” a communication means “to send [it] off or away (as to a special destination) with promptness or speed often as a matter of official business.” Webster’s Third 653; see also OED 478 (“To send off post-haste or with expedition or promptitude (a messenger, message, etc., having an express destination)”). A person who wishes to “dispatch” a letter to X will generally send it directly to X at a place where X is customarily found. The sender will not “dispatch” the letter in a roundabout way, such as by directing it to a third party who, it is hoped, will then send it on to the intended recipient.
A few examples illustrate this point. Suppose that a person is instructed to “address” a letter to the Attorney General of the United States and “dispatch” the letter (i. e., to “send [it] off post-haste”) to the Attorney General. The person giving these instructions would likely be disappointed and probably annoyed to learn that the letter had been sent to, let us say, the office of the United States Attorney for the District of Idaho. And this would be so even though a U. S. Attorney’s office is part of the De-
