B-Log

Sic of Fiction Recently I met a sic in a book of fiction. In Donan Tartt's The Goldfinch. That has set me thinking. What is a sic doing in a text of fiction? Especially the said fiction which doesn't open with the jaded apology that this is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person dead or alive is only incidental. A sic is a certifier of an error. It is an apology for committing an error. One makes oneself clear that the person who is committing the error is aware of the fact that it is thus but is committing the same as it was already committed by another. Hence a sic is not an acknowledgement of ones error but an acknowledgement of re-presenting an error made by another person or even a source. "Sic is short for Sicut, a Latin word which, for those familiar with Latin choral works, crops up in Sicut erat in principio... or 'As it was in the beginning'. So it basically means Like that. It's used when quoting something with a spelling mistake