# eg., ie., and ff

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eg-ie-and-ff/53655>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 8, 2001, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eg-ie-and-ff/53655 "2001-02-08T17:35:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eg-ie-and-ff/53655/21 "2001-02-13T20:03:27Z")

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There are a couple of reasons why you might use “_sic_” in indirect speech. For example: “The President said that he was looking forward to visiting Riga, the Lithuanian (_sic_) capital.” There are other ways you could present this, but you certainly couldn’t change “Lithuanian” to “Latvian” without misrepresenting what the President actually said.

(Any resemblance to the understanding of European geography of any actual Presidents, living or dead, is purely coincidental.)

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**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eg-ie-and-ff/53655/22 "2001-02-13T20:20:07Z")

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I’m reminded of a collection of stories we had to read in high school by Henry James.

The book was oddly entitled: Turn of the Screw et al…

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**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eg-ie-and-ff/53655/23 "2001-02-13T23:31:23Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by TomH \*  
> \*\*There are a couple of reasons why you might use “_sic_” in indirect speech. For example: “The President said that he was looking forward to visiting Riga, the Lithuanian (_sic_) capital.” There are other ways you could present this, but you certainly couldn’t change “Lithuanian” to “Latvian” without misrepresenting what the President actually said. \*\*

I would think that in these types of cases, it is better to use a direct quote.

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**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2001, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eg-ie-and-ff/53655/24 "2001-02-14T00:16:00Z")

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Maybe, maybe not. I don’t feel very strongly on the issue. Indirect speech is more flexible and requires less rigorous checking (did he say “Lithuanian capital” or “capital of Lithuania”?), which are two advantages. This may be a difference between British and US styles, though.

I’ve just realised that in don willard’s example, it should have been ordinary brackets anyway, since they fall outside the quotation marks.

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**Author:** ![Redboss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8baadc/32.png) [@Redboss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redboss)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2001, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eg-ie-and-ff/53655/25 "2001-02-14T07:33:21Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by whitetho \*  
> \*\*In my 1922 copy of _Radio Telephony for Amateurs_, the original owner liberally marked up the sections which he thought were most important. Most often he used the N.B. notation, but in a few cases he used F.B., which I’ve never been able to track down. (Example: in one case he marked a whole paragraph as F.B., and one of the paragraph’s sentences as N.B.)
> 
> Any thoughts? \*\*

N.B. Not Bad

F.B. Fuckin’ brilliant!

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