On Wed, Jul 01, 2009 at 05:54:54PM -0500, Kurt H Maier wrote:
either this is a really clever troll or else I'm going to need to know
where you heard this
the brackets don't affect the meaning of 'sic' in the least
Brackets in quoted material signify a change by the by the
person doing the quoting (e.g., "[The commission] was set..." as
opposed to "It was set..."). Parens generally signify
parenthetical material added by the original author. So, if I
want to write something silly like, I'm stuck using Lunix (sic),
the sic denotes that I didn't unintentionally misspell Linux.
If, on the other hand, I quote someone who either can't spell,
or doesn't care to clarify his clever misspellings, and I want
to indicate that the idiosyncrasy or mistake is from the
original, rather than a misquote or transcription error, I'd
write "What a rediculous [sic] set of presumptions!" If I'd used
(sic) instead, the likely presumption is that the original
author intended the misspelling and chose to acknowledge it.
--
Kris Maglione
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple,
and wrong.
--H. L. Mencken
