If we’re going to start nitpicking here, let’s get down and dirty.
Properly, the sic inside the brackets is italicized, although the brackets are not.
Thus: [sic]
I do. I talk like I write here.
And I’m pretty sure I’m not unusual. Parenthetical statements are quite common in speech. Any time you go off on a brief tangent in the middle of a paragraph (or even sentence), you are using a parenthesis, even if you don’t actually use the parenthesis marks. And, of course, there’s what I used above, subordinating a clause, which in speech would probably be done by lowering the voice.
I actually believe that the perfect paragraphs often written are the more inaccurate transcriptions. Few people talk in what are really paragraphs. The breaks are rarely based on how the person spoke, but on how the topics relate to each other, or just the combined paragraph being too long otherwise.
I thnk your second paragraph supports my poin. People don’t talk in orderly paragraphs; sontheres really nonsufh thing as a parenthesis in speech.
[sic]
When reading and I encounter a [sic], I’ve always interpreted it as ‘literally’.
Similarly, when I see i.e., I read it as ‘that is’.
And e.g., to me that is ‘and others’.
I know they’re not literal translations, but it works for me.
mmm
No, they’re not. Written language and spoken language are not the same thing. Parentheses are an artificial bit of written language created to address a way of making it easy to distinguish sub-clauses from the main idea of a sentence in written lanauge, which doesn’t have the same cues as spoken language (tempo, pitch, pauses, etc.). It’s *impossible *to speak a parenthesis, an em dash, a period, an exclamation point, etc. (Unless you want to be a smartass and just say the same of the thing as you talk, which is awkward an unnatural.)
That doesn’t make sense. The point isn’t that something was meant literally, but that it was left as-is.
Now that’s a literal translation and perfectly accurate.
This one’s wrong, too. “Et cetera” is “and other things.” “E.g.” is “(a) good example(s).”
SOMEone is not familiar with the pioneering work of Victor Borge. (Google it for your ownself.)
re: [sic], see also the Big [sic] Ten [sic] college sports conference.
You and Big T are talking past each other, and he’s right. The things that in writing we set off in parentheses, with em dashes, with non-restrictive phrase commas, and so on, are what are called parenthetical statements (or parentheses) in rhetoric. They are excursuses, restatements, and so on, intended to clarify and amplify the main statement, added “on the fly” as one thinks of a better way to explain something in mid-statement. When reduced to writing, they call for the punctuation marks called parentheses (or em dashes, commas, diaereses, and so on) to identify them as parentheses in the rhetorical sense of the word. Read that last sentence aloud, and hear the clarificatory nature of the words placed within parenthesis marks – that’s what makes it a parenthetical statement calling for them in writing. And most careful speakers, and many not so careful, will do precisely that – toss in one or more phrases intended to clarify or amplify the purport of their main thought, in the middle of a sentence – in normal speech. If you’ll allow me a little gentle snark without taking offense, you’re taking the (originally specialized) use of the term parenthesis to mean a mark of punctuation that sets off a rhetorical ‘parenthesis’ and assuming it’s the only meaning, much like a computer genius being shown a small rodent and claiming it cannot be a mouse, because it doesn’t have a USB or PS2 cable attached.
Actually, that’s not what I’m doing. I’m saying that parenthesis as a concept properly applies only to written speech or speech that was written in advance. People talking off the top of their heads naturally tend to be all over the place, and thus the concept of parenthesis does not apply to non-prepared speech.
I need to clarify:
When I insert ‘literally’ for [sic], my intent is to tell myself that’s what is actually (literally) written; in other words, it is being quoted literally (accurately).
I’m glad I have i.e. correct.
And I totally screwed up with my statement about *e.g. *As a point of fact, I interpret e.g. as ‘for example’.
It is actually ‘et al’ that I interpret as ‘and others’.
mmm
Fortunate, since that’s exactly what it means.
I’m familiar with the term, but I assumed that it evolved from the name of the punctuation mark, rather than the other way around. Apparently that was a mistaken assumption. However, I *am *still correct in asserting that people *do not *speak in punctuation marks, parentheses or otherwise, which is the meat of what I was objecting to. People speak in spoken language, and punctuation marks were developed as a way of making *written language *comprehensible.
My point was that while people *do *speak in parenthetical statements, they *don’t *speak in parentheses. Someone who has never learned to read or write will still use parenthetical statements in their speech.
I’d say it absolutely does. Talking off the top of your head is exactly the sort of time when you’d be *most *likely to include a parenthetical statement.
I wondered if something like that might be the case.
Or, sic itur ad astra = thus you go to the stars =Virgil’s Aeneid
Shot From Guns said:
Seems to me you’re making to much out of the word and not grasping the essence.
People do not speak in question marks, either, but they do speak questions. The question mark is a visual indicator for written speech of the intonation used when speaking the question. Parentheses (the marks) are visual indicators for the intonation used when speaking parenthetical remarks.
People speak in parenthetical remarks. To argue they didn’t speak the parenthesis is as silly as to argue that someone transcripting comments shouldn’t include question marks because people don’t speak in question marks.
Seems to me you’re not paying attention to what I’m replying to. **acsenray **said “People don’t talk in parentheses,” and **BigT **said that he does, and then went on to talk about parenthetical statements. My point was simply the incredibly nitpicky one that people don’t talk in punctuation; rather, punctuation was created to reflect the way in which we speak.
People do talk in Parentheses. “While a parenthesis need not be written enclosed by the curved brackets called parentheses, their use principally around rhetorical parentheses has made the punctuation marks the only common use for the term in most contexts.” (from the link)
peopletalkincommastooanddashesandperiodsandquestionmarksandinterrobangsandevenincapitalizationnottomentioncolonsandsemicolonsandhyphensandtheyalsotalkinspellingalthoughsometimestheyellidewordssothattheytalkinspellin
[size=1]There are no spaces. I don’t care what the parser does with this[/size-1]
This may be true in theory, but I have spent a professional life recording and reporting people speaking extemporaneously and from my experience, it’s clear to me that the concept of parenthesis does not comfortably fit with extemporaneous speech. It requires too much interpretation or editorializing on the part of the person transcribing the speech. It adds too much in the way of implied meaning that is not justified by teh actual experience. In any extemporaneous dialogue, there are constant changes in topic, of varying distance from one might pin as the non-parenthetical topic. Picking and choosing which ones are appropriately transcribed with parentheses (the marks) in writing is simply not appropriate unless the speaker was reading from a text in which the parentheses were pre-inserted. I would not allow anyone working under my supervision to judge for themselves whether some portion of speech was parenthetical or not.
*My interpretation *of the post I was responding to is that it meant parentheses in the sense of the punctuation. Yours is clearly different. For my interpretation, my nitpicking was a valid response. If the person I was responding to were to respond and clarify that he was not talking about the punctuation, then I will happily admit that I misinterpreted him. However, my statement that people do not speak punctuation will still remain accurate; it will simply be out of context.