Talk:Sic

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I've removed here what may be merely intentional offensiveness, and in any case is not useful for editing the article.
--Jerzy•t 21:21, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Second Example 2 Brackets 3 Requested move 3.1 Voting 4 Heh. 5 Pronunciation 6 Poetic 7 Formatting argument 8 A Recent Phenomenon? 9 Latin 10 "in another way" 11 This page 12 Sic and dialects 13 This list 14 Latin Acronym

[edit] Second Example

I think the second example, "Dan Quayle famously changed a student's spelling to 'potatoe' [sic]", might be a bit of a stretch. The fact that 'potatoe' is in quotes and that the sentence is about an instance of misspelling makes the [sic] completely superfluous. Sic is an editorial tool for improving clarity. I think the example demonstrates poor usage. A better example might be something like the "bear-back ride" one below. Comments?

I agree, I don't think it's necessarily an incorrect usage but as an example it's not great and I would advocate a change. In contrast I think the last sentence of the article is very amusing and imaginative. blankfrackis 22:22, 30 September 2006 (GMT)

I've replaced it with a clearer one captured in the wild. I have qualms about naming-and-shaming the ridiculed party, but I think in linguistics an actual example is always preferable to a custom-built synthetic one. jnestorius^(talk) 03:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the new example is perfect either. "...clean and individual, with its [sic] finger on the fashion pulse." This is not an incorrect spelling of the word "its" in this context. This word is used here as a posessional pronoun, rather than a contraction. The point about ridicule and irony certainly comes across, and I know that this quote was taken from another website; however, to demonstrate the proper use of [sic], it would be appropriate to use a word which is actually misspelled or misused. TWCarlson 21:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

That's because someone has helpfully "corrected" the quote! Uncorrected it back. -- Ian Dalziel 21:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't check the history or I would've seen that. When I checked the reference, I misread it and thought that it, too, used "its" instead of "it's". Thus, I thought whoever wrote the reference article did not know the correct usage. I thus judged it as a poor selection of a reference. Thanks for the correction! TWCarlson 05:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brackets

In the article, this 'graph:

For example in writing "I was amused to be invited for a 'bear-back [sic] ride' into town", the sic implies an error by the who-ever wrote 'bear-back ride' and is placed inside square brackets to show it is your insertion. If you were genuinely invited to ride on a bear, you might write "I was amused to be invited for a bear-back (sic) ride into town."

whose grammar symptomatically suggests that a word is capable of writing, is so unclear that i got 75% done rewriting it more clearly (and without using second-person, and indenting rather than using quotation marks), and realized that i still didn't get it myself. I hope someone else will try.
--Jerzy•t 21:21, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe this round vs. square bracket distinction. I just checked the online editions of The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, The New Oxford American Dictionary, The Oxford Dictionary of English, The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English, and the Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage. All of them define "sic", but none of them mention any convention for brackets. Tearlach 21:02, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Theoretically square brackets would be preferred where "sic" is an interpolation by an editor - the convention is hardly ever followed in practice. -- Ian Dalziel 23:01, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Umm ... it's not theoretical. Every major style guide I've ever read has noted that it is used within square brackets. I've NEVER seen a reference to using it within parentheses.

• http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/s.html (US)
• http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/doc/punctuation/node30.html (UK)
• http://www.jcu.edu.au/studying/services/studyskills/writing/references.html (Australia)
• http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/grammar/course/punctuation/3_6.htm (Canada)
• http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq/cmosfaq.Quotations.html Chicago Manual of Style
• http://www.viterbo.edu/perspgs/faculty/RSamuels/squarebracketsandquotes.html (gratuitous additional reference)

This convention is followed on both sides of the pond, so it's not a U.S. vs. British thing. ⇒ B.Rossow ^talk_contr [[Thursday]], [[April 20]], [[2006]] @ 12:55 (UTC)

Quite agree that it is the preferred usage. However, in practice it just isn't used that way. It is widely used without italics and with round brackets in exactly the sense described. The previously discussed and removed paragraph - see "bear-back" above - was correct in saying that square brackets should be used by the editor, round by the author. Would you buy something like "which should be in italics and square brackets"? -- Ian Dalziel 14:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the fact that some people use it incorrectly should dictate that the description here be compromised. In proper practice it is used that way — that is, with square brackets and italicized. The above paragraph you cited is not correct in stating that parentheses ("round brackets") should be used by the author. In that example, a much more proper way would be to write it as this: I was amused to be invited for a "bear"-back ride into town. The quotes indicate the author intends the unusual usage; the use of sic is entirely inappropriate in original (i.e. unquoted) material. To the best of my knowledge and (brief) research, no legitimate reference exists to support the claim that parentheses and sic would be used as suggested above. If such a reference exists, I for one would love to see it and would be glad to be proven wrong. If we are going to let a common incorrect practice trump documented proper usage, then we should just as legitimately move all of the so-called "incorrect" interpretations of sic back to the top as accepted meanings as well and not limit it to the "correct" Latin definition. Right? ⇒ B.Rossow ^talk_contr [[Thursday]], [[April 20]], [[2006]] @ 18:49 (UTC)

Oh very well - the example was clumsy and unlikely, I admit. It was correct in that a parenthetic comment by the author should have round brackets, unlikely though "sic" would be as such a comment, though.

I'm quite happy to see correct usage documented - what I dislike is the implication that "sic" only has the meaning specified when it is italicised and enclosed in square brackets. It has no other meaning in text.

Entirely agree with the rest of your clean-up, by the way. -- Ian Dalziel 19:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The only place I've ever seen (sic) instead of [sic] is on Wikipedia pages. All usage guides I've read suggest using square brackets. http://www.protrainco.com/info/essays/usage.htm#_1_11 Prometheus^-X303- 23:11, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you didn't look very hard, then - Google turned up three examples on the first page when I tried. There is no argument about the fact that square brackets are correct for any interpolation by an editor. Round brackets are widely - and incorrectly - used, though, and the word is still being used to mean exactly the same thing. The current wording suggests to me that the meaning is somehow different if square brackets are not used. -- Ian Dalziel 08:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

---

[edit] Heh.

You know, I always thought it stood for Spelled In Correctly. It's latin? What a world we live in. A very not-anvil-or-mashed-soda-dispenser-shaped world. Yeah. Homfrog 22:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)!

[edit] Pronunciation

How is sic pronounced? I have hear it pronounced like "sick" and like "Sikh" -- what's correct? With my luck, it's probably neither of those.... Anyway, I don't know if it's necessary to put in an IPA pronunciation guide, but it could be useful. Opinions? -Phoenixrod 10:33, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

As this word need only be used in writing, and as it is a latin word (for whihc there are no correct pronunciations (if my Latin education was correct!) I suspect it can be pronounced either way (although i prefer 'sick') Boldymumbles 09:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poetic

Caesar adsum jam forte

Pompey aderat

Caeser sic in omnibus

Pompey sic in at.

I just had to say it :-) Just zis Guy you know? 16:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Formatting argument

The above "Brackets" discussion makes a number of contradicting assertions about the formatting of "sic". Several professional guidelines are mentioned, but their relevant passages are not cited. User B. Rossow includes a number of specific citations, all of which support square brackets, but which disagree on italicization (see table below). Personally, I've always thought it should be [sic] (square brackets and Latin word italicized), the idea being that any text not in the original should be typographically offset from the original. I freely admit I could be wrong, and am willing to follow official practice, assuming one can be firmly established by citations from prominent style guidelines.

I decided to check the cited links for their actual statements and their authority, and found they didn't exactly address the whole issue. Here's what I've found:

Link	Source	Usage	Observations
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/s.html (US)	Rutgers English professor Jack Lynch's "Guide to Grammar and Style	[sic]	expert, but no formal style guide citation; no explanation of why unitalicized brackets
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/doc/punctuation/node30.html (UK)	U of Sussex Informatics' "Quotation Marks and Direct Quotations"	[sic]	Comp Sci dept, no clear authority; no stated formal guide; no expl of unitalicized brackets
http://www.jcu.edu.au/studying/services/studyskills/writing/references.html (Australia)	James Cook U, "Academic Writing: References"	[sic]	apparently U-wide guideline, but no stated authority; contradicts text by not italicizing "sic"
http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/grammar/course/punctuation/3_6.htm (Canada)	U of Calgary English Department's "Punctuation 3.6: Parentheses and Square Brackets"	[sic]	expert org, but no formal guide cited; contradicts text by not italicizing "sic"
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq/cmosfaq.Quotations.html Chicago Manual of Style	U of Chicago Press: "Quotations"	[sic]	authoritative professional style guide; no explanation of details; cites CMOS 11.4, 11.8, and 11.69 w/o details
http://www.viterbo.edu/perspgs/faculty/RSamuels/squarebracketsandquotes.html (gratuitous additional reference)	Viterbo U English professor Rolf Samuels' "Using Square Brackets with Quotations"	[sic]	expert, but no formal style guide citation; contradicts text by not italicizing "sic"

The guidelines cited by the universities, their English departments, and/or their English instructors could be considered authoritative, but even in this argument being made by someone specifically to support square brackets, there is disagreement over italics. It is unclear whether the absence of counter arguments is because there are none, or because the citer didn't find or choose to include any. (Where are Oxford, Harvard, or Yale? Why a Comp Sci department?) Furthermore, there is only one professional style guide cited, and only for a brief statement that offers no explanation but cautions the need for "considerable editorial judgment".

There are very few, if any, iron-clad style rules in English-language publication. At least with publishers' style guides, we limit the scope to a few dozen prominent publishers instead of tens of thousands of universities and hundreds of thousands of English professors. More research must be done on this to claim any clear direction in the matter of brackets and italicization of either or both of the term and the brackets. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:56, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A Recent Phenomenon?

I swear I never saw the "[sic]" notation anywhere before the mid to late 1980's, and then it started to show up in every magazine. Before then, I guess that readers were supposed to know that a misspelling in a direct quote was a mistake of the quoted, not the quoter. I allways thought that there was a little bit of meanness in the use of this notation, which I think is sometimes used in an attempt to depict the quoted source as ignorant or stupid.--Drvanthorp 03:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latin

Isn't it an abbreviation of the Latin word "sicut" meaning "thus" (as in, like this, or "he really said it like this"? I'm not aware of any actual Latin word spelled "sic" [sic]. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.179.17.107 (talk • contribs).

Sic transit gloria mundi. I believe "sic" in Latin is indeed a form or abbreviation of "sicut", but it certainly does exist on its own. -- Ian Dalziel 06:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "in another way"

Someone recently added "in another way" to the Latin meanings of sic. Doesn't that contradict the others ("thus", "so", or "just as that")? Prometheus^-X303- 22:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This page

makes me feal [sic]. Yeanold Viskersenn 00:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sic and dialects

Hrm... dialects weren't explicitly mentioned on the page. I'm assuming it's within standard usage to say "sic" after quoting something written in a differnt dialect; it also seems appropriate to use the term after (for example) quoting something from British English while the rest of a work is written using American English (and vice versa). Or is it more common just to "translate" a quote from British to American, either not noting the translation, or by use of brackets

(The following is based on a sentence written in BE, "The family were going on holiday." cited in an otherwise AE text. Clearly, I'm using a simple example, rather than an academic one.)

• The family were going on holiday. [sic]
• The family was going on vacation. (change without reference)
• The family [was] going on [vacation].

What seems the most natural/appropriate? samwaltz 14:10, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This list

"spelling is correct", "same in copy", "spelled incorrectly", "spelling incompetent", "said in context", "spoken in context", "stupid in context", "stand incorrect", "spelling intentionally changed", or "sans intent comique".

---

Are these actually genuine? I had a search on the internet and can't find many citations other than those quoted from this actual article. The last one is particularly fanciful.--Christopher Denman 09:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

What does "genuine" mean? They're all rubbish, but they're as genuine as one another. Everyone seems to want to add what he thought it meant - and there is obviously a near-infinite set of expressions for which "sic" doesn't stand. The only point I can see in a list is that it may discourage the next editor who wants to change the article to say that it's an acronym! By all means prune the list again - it'll be sprouting in Spring, no doubt. -- Ian Dalziel 18:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Latin Acronym

I was told by an actual Latin teacher that it was, in fact, an acronym: signum in cartam, translated "in accordance with the image on the paper" or in other words "as it was written." This seems more reasonable than the actual Latin word "sic" which appears as such in a dictionary:
sic ADV,POS
sic ADV
thus, so; as follows; in another way; in such a way;
Which doesn't seem to indicate in any sort of direct manner that the error is intentional and a reflection of the original source.
Lumbergh 19:47, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

"Thus" means it was thus in the quoted text. That's all it means. It is a short form of "sicut". It is not any kind of acronym - there are no Latin acronyms. -- Ian Dalziel 22:12, 20 March 2007 (UTC)