# What does this editing thing mean? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 30, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651 "2010-09-30T19:46:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/1 "2010-09-30T19:46:45Z")
I’m reading a short online article about crazy things people have said during interviews. It has a correction, I’m assuming, that I’ve seen many many times but could never really figure out what they are correcting. I know when I see (sic), it means the previous word is misspelled, or there’s some horrendous grammar, but what does a perfectly normal word in brackets mean? > [@](#): > > 1. “I recently had the craziest interviewee ever come into our offices for a copywriter position. I wanted enthusiastic, but this guy was so over the top, I almost laughed in the middle of the interview. He high-fived someone on my team after hearing that my team member just got engaged. He talked about how terrible his boss was for a good 20 minutes. He said he felt like he was already working with us. And then he left something behind so that he could come back and get it. He called wondering when he could come back, and we **[saw]** him prepping in the parking lot.” Is “saw” supposed to be an insertion of a word after an omission, or an editor correcting the quote and putting the right word in, or is it simply inserted for clarity? “We him prepping in the parking lot.” doesn’t make sense so it can’t be an omission, but in other places where I’ve seen edits such as this, it seems like it actually was the insertion of a missing word ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/2 "2010-09-30T19:51:01Z")
The times I’ve seen it used it was to add a word that was not in the original quote for clarity, or to replace the wrong tense (for example). In the example you provided I would guess that the actual quote was “and we **see** him prepping in the parking lot.” People often use the present tense when casually retelling a story, but the quote works better with the past tense “saw” there. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/3 "2010-09-30T20:00:13Z")
It usually means the word wasn’t part of the original quote, but has been inserted or changed for clarity without changing the meaning of the quote. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/4 "2010-09-30T20:05:42Z")
And I’ll bet what they replaced in the original text was “seen.” Irks me to no end. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/5 "2010-09-30T20:06:30Z")
Also, “sic” isn’t limited to grammatical errors. It basically means “not my fault” or “I’m quoting this correctly; that’s indeed what the guy said.” ---
**Author:** ![J\_Cubed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@J\_Cubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/J_Cubed)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/6 "2010-09-30T20:07:45Z")
You’ll also see brackets around just a capital letter if the original wording was in the middle of sentence, but the quote starts a sentence. “[N]uke the entire site from orbit.” And if the source of the quote is far more familiar with someone than the rest of us, you might see something like, “Then me and [former President] Bill [Clinton] went out drinkin’”. ---
**Author:** ![postcards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8e8cbc/32.png) [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/7 "2010-09-30T21:25:35Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Also, “sic” isn’t limited to grammatical errors. It basically means “not my fault” or “I’m quoting this correctly; that’s indeed what the guy said.” I had an English teacher tell me it means “ **S** tands **I** n **C** orrect”, but he was a sub. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/8 "2010-09-30T21:53:06Z")
> [@postcards](#): > > > [@Reply](#): > > > > Also, “sic” isn’t limited to grammatical errors. It basically means “not my fault” or “I’m quoting this correctly; that’s indeed what the guy said.” > > I had an English teacher tell me it means “ **S** tands **I** n **C** orrect”, but he was a sub. And, like most etymologies that posit someone using an acronym much before the Second World War, it’s incorrect. ‘Sic’ is Latin for ‘thus’ or ‘so’, and is the origin of the Spanish word ‘sí’ meaning ‘yes’. (In Latin, it was pronounced like ‘seek’, not ‘sick’.) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/9 "2010-09-30T21:57:20Z")
It could mean that the person who wrote the original quote accidentally left out the word “saw” and the editor is adding it for clarity. i.e., it originally read, “He called wondering when he could come back, and we him prepping in the parking lot.” ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/10 "2010-10-01T16:51:05Z")
Anything in brackets in a quote is material that was not present in the original. It could be either an addition or a substitution. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/11 "2010-10-01T18:32:00Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Anything in brackets in a quote is material that was not present in the original. It could be either an addition or a substitution. This is precisely on target. Exact quote: “I saw him coming through the window, so I called the cops.” As used in narrative: “Jones said he saw the accused man ‘coming through the [kitchen] window, so [he] called the cops.’” The initial braketed word was supplied, as Jones was talking to the reporter in his kitchen and indicated which window he meant with a gesture. The second simply changes the person of the pronoun to match the indirect quotation. [Sic] means “so [in the original]” and is used to faithfully report an apparent error in the original text, for whatever reason the person making the quotation might have for preserving it. In the famous Dred Scott court case, Scott sued a man named Sanford for his freedom; owing to a cour reporter’s error, it is always cited as “Dred Scott v. Sandford [sic]” followed of course by the case law report cites. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/12 "2010-10-01T18:38:31Z")
Oh, and on the subject of the origin of sic: You can remember that it’s a Latin word meaning “thus” by remembering its inclusion in the phrase “sic transit gloria mundi.” Of course, if you don’t know that expression, it wouldn’t help you much. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chris\_Luongo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Chris\_Luongo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chris_Luongo)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/13 "2010-10-01T18:43:04Z")
As far as I know, brackets are used when the writer changes and/or inserts something for clarity. Let’s suppose someone’s being interviewed, talking about an encounter with a waiter at a restaurant. The speaker might refer to the waiter as his first name, or simply as “he,” as follows: **Example 1:** “I asked him for more coffee.” **Example 2:** “I asked John for more coffee.” If an author is writing a story about this, he will use brackets to include an explanation that makes it easier for the reader to understand, as follows: **Examples 1 and 2 corrected for clarity using brackets:** “I asked [the waiter] for more coffee.” Basically, when you see “the waiter” in brackets, it means that the original speaker didn’t say those exact words, but said something with the same meaning. Naturally, there must be some cases where the author uses brackets to dishonestly imply the speaker said something different to make him or her look bad, but at least the spirit of the rule is just for clarity. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/14 "2010-10-01T19:03:18Z")
> [@Chris\_Luongo](#): > > Naturally, there must be some cases where the author uses brackets to dishonestly imply the speaker said something different to make him or her look bad, but [I killed a baby yesterday and I’m not sorry at all]. Psh, like that would ever happen. **Disclaimer** : \*\*Chris Luongo \*\*did not actually kill a baby; or if he did, I’m sure he feels bad about it. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/15 "2010-10-01T19:10:55Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > And I’ll bet what they replaced in the original text was “seen.” Irks me to no end. Indeed, it should have been “we \*\*done \*\*seen him.” ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/16 "2010-10-01T19:19:58Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Oh, and on the subject of the origin of sic: You can remember that it’s a Latin word meaning “thus” by remembering its inclusion in the phrase “sic transit gloria mundi.” Of course, if you don’t know that expression, it wouldn’t help you much. 😃 I didn’t know Gloria was sick. ---
**Author:** ![Lare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Lare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lare)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/17 "2010-10-01T19:42:42Z")
She was on Monday. Caught something on the bus, I gather. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/18 "2010-10-01T21:45:07Z")
If you can tolerate one last example, sometimes a newspaper will use a word in brackets to show they substituted for a word they couldn’t print: “The email said, ‘This was a [crappy] deal.’” ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2010, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/19 "2010-10-02T16:47:47Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > > [@Chris\_Luongo](#): > > > > Naturally, there must be some cases where the author uses brackets to dishonestly imply the speaker said something different to make him or her look bad, but [I killed a baby yesterday and I’m not sorry at all]. > > Psh, like that would ever happen. > > **Disclaimer** : \*\*Chris Luongo \*\*did not actually kill a baby; or if he did, I’m sure he feels bad about it. [moderating] You should know this SDMB rule by now. Do _NOT_ change the contents of text in a QUOTE tag except to add bold for emphasis (in which case you should add the words “emphasis mine” outside the tags). If you want to edit what someone said, do it inside quote marks instead. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651/20 "2010-10-02T16:57:38Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > I didn’t know Gloria was sick. There’s one in every frakkin’ crowd. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-this-editing-thing-mean/555651.md?page=2)