[sic]

[friedo]

*Originally posted by Spritle *
Perhaps this person is just trying to look intelligent so they can curry favor with the more influential. Sort of a…

[sic]ophant.

This chick I dated once called be a [sic] bastard.

[Shade]

*Originally posted by flyboy88 *
**I hate to be the serious one here, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. I’ve never done it, but I do understand when others do.

People take a small measure of pride in their spelling or writing ability. I wouldn’t call it smugness. I don’t think people are trying to point out someone else’s mistake when they use it; I think they’re just saying “this mistake isn’t mine.” **

It makes perfect sense if you include a mistake in a print, and don’t want it sub-edited away, or type a quote in, but if its [sic] in quote tags it’s fairly obvious you cut and pasted or replied. I’d say only use it when there’s a reason to preserve the error - do people really do anything else?

Ha ha! Quote me now:

[/quote]

[sic]s inserted.

[waterj2]

I’d say only use it when there’s a reason to preserve the error - do people really do anything else?

That’s the rule of thumb I use. For example, if I was talking about Wildest Bill, I might mention his thread title “Would Are [sic] Eco System [sic] be Ok [sic] if we Extincted [sic] Mosquitos” just to keep people from assuming that I was making those errors, if I for some reason was unable to otherwise convey that I was including the misspellings exactly as written. Or perhaps if I wanted to make the point that Wildest Bill was a semi-literate fuckwit (I’m merely being hypothetical here, and do not actually think that of him).

Another use is in quoting a short phrase, name, or term from another poster in quotation marks where there might be some confusion over what is meant. In the great “Mad Hatter” thread, one of the primary items being discussed was an article which relied for several of its claims on a book by a Charles Turner Thackrah, and which also made mention of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Pendennis. The article in question was merely an excerpt, omitting a first reference to Thackrah’s name or work, only ever referring to his last name, and also misspelled Thackeray as “Thackerah”. In describing the confusion that resulted (and perhaps half of Duck Duck Goose’s sig in the process), it would be entirely appropriate to note that the misspelling was original to the article being quoted.