Sic for Dummies

How to use "sic"

"Do as I say, not as I do" is the unofficial motto of the internet, doncha think? It's especially true of a certain subset of grammar cops - you know, the ones whose advice is to "be sure to check your grammer and speling"... The Antisocial Network's house grammar curmudgeon (yes, we have one) always finds that error irresistible. Of course, it's not the only bad grammar advice out there: check out some of the dumbassery contained in the "answers" to a HubPages.com user who had a question about errors in quoted material. The original questioner asked, 

"If you quote someone and what they wrote contains spelling or grammar mistakes, do you correct them?" That's a valid question. What she got, however, was not valid answers. For instance, hubbie Angela Blair says "When I quote someone I quote them verbatim without correction. If the meaning of the quote is unclear because of grammer [sic] or spelling errors I make explanation for it. Quite often folks lapse into the vernacular of a certain part of the country or their heritage which adds charm and depth to the story telling."

Not only does Angela flub the answer, did you notice that she can't spell "grammar"? So let's move on to the next suggestion, by hubster Insane Mundane (whose answer is rather inane):

"That's why on news sites, for example, when they quote other people with bad grammar, they just provide the original quote under the beloved 'parenthesis marks' and use the [...] function, to correct it. For example: John said, 'I saw that fool [come] into the store wearing a mask, then when [the gun] came out we all hit the floor.""

There's another dummy who 1) doesn't know that "parenthesis marks" is redundant and 2) is wrong about the use of brackets. Brackets, in Insane's example, indicate that the word(s) within them have been inserted editorially to substitute for the words actually used, typically to resolve ambiguity. Moron. Next in line we find a hubbie who calls himself Mick S. Mick says,

"It is fairly standard to quote the mistakes but enclose them in square brackets to indicate that the quote is as the original author wrote it." Nope, wrong again. He's on the right track (which is probably why the locals don't like his answer very much), but that's not the reason for square brackets in quoted material. Only one of the "answers" - the one that sorts to the bottom in "helpfulness" order - gets the usage question (half) right: Joseph Aaskov, bless his little heart, tells the OQ, "Use [sic] after the mistake. It means that you've transcribed it exactly as it's been written or said by another, regardless of its mistakes."

He might have elaborated a bit and said that the convention is to use square brackets to indicate editorial material and that sic is simply Latin for "thus," editor's shorthand for "I didn't make that mistake, that's the way I found it." At least Joe's answer's not as dumb as the "best" answer by Peggy (purplmama), who describes herself as an English Language Arts teacher: she missed the point entirely. Dumbasses, all of them (except maybe Joe).

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