Always wanted to know this.... what does [sic] stand for???

[MrsDandOllie]

I have pretty much worked out the general meaning for myself as being something that has been quoted directly from somewhere else and is stated exactly as originally said/written. But what do the letters sic actually stand for? Is it 'spelling in-correct'?, 'said in-correctly'? something else entirely???

'stands in context'?

Latin for thus.

Sicut is the latin word, meaning thus.

Used in brackets to mean that the original is misspelt or wrong and is not the fault of person writing, as it were.

Derivation

In the Italo-Western Romance languages it was the basis for their word for "yes": sí (Spanish), sim (Portuguese), sì (Italian), si (French for "yes, on the contrary"). Medieval Latin sometimes used sic as "yes", reflecting the Romance usage.

or rather 'sicut' just as......

My brain is a bit wooly on these matters..............

Meaning 'Their mistake rather than mine!

Wikipedia has a good explanation:

here

I dont think sic is an acronym. I think it is just an old word (Latin I think) - which means, when written after a word you know is incorrectly spelt, that you know it is incorrectly spelt but are leaving the word as written IYKWIM!

In fact my first reply could be reported as a [ ] sic event!

Or can be used for humour too, can't it?

To suggest something is not what they are saying it is, to subvert it.

If you are being really pedantic, isn't is supposed to be in italics or something?

Maybe square brackets and italics.

The true pedant would probably quote a wronly presented 'sic' with glee!