Sic

First of all, there will be no pictorial accompaniment to this post. When you’ve read it, you may like to suggest what I could use by way of illustration. Clean, inoffensive and practical answers preferred, although I suppose that’s hoping for too much!

Edit: Thanks Minky! Picture now added. 

You have no doubt read newspaper and magazine reports where people have been quoted, or passages of text reprinted in their original form. Often, there will be the word sic in parentheses, like this: (sic) or this [sic]. I’m sure the majority of you already know what it represents – those who don’t, read on – I will discuss the true meaning after telling the story of what it isn’t.

For such a small word, there are a lot of ideas and suggestions as to its origin and here are but a handful of them:

The court recorder of King James I of England sent coded messages to his lover about the nocturnal habits of the king. Sadly, the woman in question was also one of the king’s mistresses, and when the king found out, the court recorder was quickly relieved of the burden of living. The sic in question was said to mean scandalum in camera (scandal in the room, or “bedroom scandal” for the tabloid readers out there).

Another theory suggests that it means Stated In Context, which does sound plausible at least.

Many believe it to mean Spelling InCorrect – slightly less plausible, as the word “incorrect” needs to be spelled incorrectly in order for the acronym to work. Hmmm.

My personal favourite is “spelling intentionally crap” – funny, but as with all the above, not true. The word sic is an abbreviation of the Latin word sicut, meaning “so” or “just as (this/that)”. It was further shortened by the Romance languages to form the words for “yes” – sí (Spanish), si (French, when used in a contrary context) and of course sì (Italian).

In publishing these days, it is used to signify that any error in grammar, spelling or data is being reported verbatim -”as is” – and is not a mistake by the publishers of the article. You may see something like:

They need to work on they’re (sic) grammar.

or an example I saw in a UK shop window recently that nearly made me sick (pun intended):

All clothes for adult’s (sic) is (sic) now only 5.00

Really. I actually saw it – amazing. Anyway, you can see how sic can be used to let people know you are aware of the original author’s shortcomings when quoting a piece of text, so that readers will not be given the wrong impression.

Another famous appearance for the word is in the oft-quoted sic transit gloria mundi – “thus passes the glory of the world”. In other words, glory is fleeting – get on and enjoy your 15 minutes (OK, that was my interpretation – not the official line – but that’s the gist of it).

Finally, I do appreciate I’m setting myself up here, and that any error in this post, however small, will be flagged by someone using (sic) against me. Bring it on – I’m not scared!