Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Dictionary App Word Note Writer Who is SW?

Simple question. In the Dictionary App > Word Note > Who is SW? I've seen DFW (David Foster Wallace) on here, but who is SW!?


Any light on this much appreciated! ...I just want to know! Thanks!


_____________________________________________________________________________


The particular place SW pops up is if you type "Cream" into the Dictionary & select Thesaurus:


WORD NOTE

chrism

Whatever makes up that (usually) white mammalian secretion known as milk is divided into three essential elements—the serous or serum-like liquid, the whey; the casein-like coagulate that can be made into cheese; and that part technically known as the butyraceous or buttery fraction, which floats on the top and is known, of course, as cream. This last word is not simply pleasing and sonorous: it is very ancient, and is freighted with much more than a mere dietary connotation: it enjoys an eleventh-century lexical connection with a word that still survives, if rarely used, and which I think of as one of the prettiest in the tongue: the word for the anointing unguent employed in high church ceremonial, the chrism. Chrism both welcomes a child into the world—he is baptized with chrism and wrapped in a chrism-cloth—and it is used to anoint the forehead and lips of one who is departing, and who is given extreme unction. It is tempting merely to use the word oil when writing of such matters: but in fact properly organized churches mix that resinous fragrance known as balm into non-aromatic vegetable oil to make its chrism, and since the ecclesiastical community takes such time and trouble to make the stuff, I advocate using the word, unfamiliar though it may well be. Moreover its connection with cream—before the thirteenth century the words were more or less interchangeable—gives it a certain homely quality that adds to its attraction.

— SW

Dictionary-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Oct 9, 2013 2:31 PM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Oct 10, 2013 4:24 AM

Probably Simon Winchester. See http://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-american-writers-thesaurus-9780199 829927

2 replies

Dictionary App Word Note Writer Who is SW?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.