The use of (sic) What does it mean?

[Abaddon]

Just been reading and wondering what the use of (sic) signifys?

 

[thetrooper]

Only old geezers and academics use that.

 

[oagersnap]

It's used when you quote something and there was an error in the original text/statement, to point out that the error wasn't made when you quoted it.

Also, it's usually written in square brackets, like this: [sic]

 

[Kyriakos]

I would suspect that it comes from the latin sic (as in the famous phrase about the glory of the world) and so would mean "thus", meant as a "said exactly in this way". It means to show that the writer feels that the quote he is reffering to is highly questionable as for its worth, or to put it more plainly it is semi-idiotic

 

[warpus]

Google is your friend

 

[Abaddon]

Google is your friend

So is Barney

 

[Rossiya]

It's Latin for "therefore" or "so". Trust me, I'm doing GCSE Latin.

 

[Kyriakos]

In english 'therefore' does not have the same meaning as 'thus' i think, since it would mean "due to this" and not "in this way".

 

[Abaddon]

Cheers that fits the bill guys..


As a kid i always imagined the editer showing his bad feeling about the previous words.

Kinda was right in a tilted sence

 

[Rossiya]

In english 'therefore' does not have the same meaning as 'thus' i think, since it would mean "due to this" and not "in this way".

"Therefore" is the same as "thus".

 

[oagersnap]

I would suspect that it comes from the latin sic (as in the famous phrase about the glory of the world) and so would mean "thus", meant as a "said exactly in this way". It means to show that the writer feels that the quote he is reffering to is highly questionable as for its worth, or to put it more plainly it is semi-idiotic

No, it's just used to point out an error in spelling, for example. So if the text you're quoting says "... blah blah blah informasion..." you would in your quote write "...informasion [sic]...".

 

[Kyriakos]

I think that some of the natives (english ) could answer that, although my view is that "therefore" is very different from "thus", even if it can occasionally mean the same thing. On the contrary you could not use "thus" to mean "due to this", since it means "in this way" ("thus spoke Zarathustra")

@Oagersnap: i have many times seen it used ironically as well; it is a known usage of it.

 

[Mise]

I think that some of the natives (english ) could answer that, although my view is that "therefore" is very different from "thus", even if it can occasionally mean the same thing. On the contrary you could not use "thus" to mean "due to this", since it means "in this way" ("thus spoke Zarathustra")

Varwnos is quite right... Thus and therefore can mean the same thing, but don't in general.

 

[viz]

thus spoke Zarathustra

'In this way' is used but secondary to 'therefore'. Here is an example of comman usage:

The object has four sides of equal length, thus the object is square.

The usage of 'sic' is mainly in quotes where a particular word or phrase is written as quoted but appears wrong.

 

[EdwardTking]

The object has four sides of equal length, thus the object is square.

In this case the don't blame me, 'sic' would be more appropriate

Remember the Rhombus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhombus

 

[ybbor]

Cheers that fits the bill guys..


As a kid i always imagined the editer showing his bad feeling about the previous words.

Kinda was right in a tilted sence

it's not a bad feeling, it's used exclusively for misspellings and grammatical errors, as oager has consistently pointed out.

for instance you would put sic in this sentence:
"All races are equall [sic], to say otherwise is wrong." because "equal" is spelled wrong.

but not in this sentence:
"Whites are inherently superior to blacks." Because while the idea is wrong, the grammar is correct.

As you can see, the actual content of the sentence is irrelevant. Varwnos's explanation was flat out wrong.

 

[Mathilda]

Moderator Action: Question answered, thread closed.