Sic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sic is a Latin word meaning "thus", "so", or "just as that". In writing, it is placed within square brackets and usually italicized — [sic] — to indicate that an incorrect or unusual spelling, phrase, punctuation, and/or other preceding quoted material has been reproduced verbatim from the quoted original and is not a transcription error.
The word sic may be used either to show that an uncommon or archaic usage is reported faithfully (for instance, quoting the U.S. Constitution, "The House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker...") or to highlight an error, often for the purpose of ridicule or irony, as in this example:
- Warehouse has been around for 30 years and has 263 stores, suggesting a large fan base. The chain sums up its appeal thus: “styley [sic], confident, sexy, glamorous, edgy, clean and individual, with it's [sic] finger on the fashion pulse.”[1]
If text containing a quote is itself quoted in a third text, it may not be possible for a reader to tell whether any "[sic]" in the inner quote was added by the writer of the second text or the writer of the third text, or whether the anomaly highlighted was introduced by the first writer or the second.
The word sic is sometimes erroneously thought to be an acronym from any of a vast number of phrases such as "same in copy", "spelled incorrectly", "said in context", or "sans intent comique". These "backronyms" are all false etymologies.
