Hacker News Reader

Comment by llimos | Hacker News Reader

Side-question: Is it normal to write [sic] after an alternative but not wrong spelling of a word? Jack is American, and uses American English, which I guess is against the BBC's style guide, but "I realize [sic]" seems to be going too far?

View on HN

I do not know if it's normal or not. Certainly I don't think I've ever seen 'sic' being used on American spelling like that ever before. It stood out to me as strange, and I even remarked to the wife, 'Have you ever seen the BBC add "sic" to American spelling before?'

Brits are completely aware that Americans spell things differently, personally I don't feel it needs pointing out. Makes it look like the writer thinks Jack is wrong!

Googling "BBC using sic for American spelling" brought me to your comment, and looking at the other results it doesn't look like they do it all the time. Seems silly to have done it at all!

I wager it get's edited away before the end of the day.

Same for "apologize [sic]", in the same paragraph. That's a bizarre decision by the journalist or editor. Will they [sic] every ou vs. o and s vs z?

I'd either ignore it, or just change the quote to British English, I assume that's not going too far.

edit: apparently it is going too far. Quoting across the Atlantic is a common issue faced by writers, and it seems the consensus is that you always just quote letter-for-letter.

I suppose it means "we know you're going to notice this isn't how you'd spell it, and rest assured it's intentional".

How would the BBC handle it if Jack [sic]'ed it himself?

If he tweets "I realize [sic] this is a silly question", how would they quote it?

They'd probably say in the sentence after the quote that the "sic" had been included.

Yes it is normal. It doesn't necessarily imply the wrongness. It's an unusual spelling in British English and the annotation tells you the spelling is reproduced verbatim rather than someone at BBC mistyping it.

Wow, you weren't kidding. That's more than a bit crazy that they would do that. Maybe they want to stave off letters to the editor?

> you weren't kidding [sic]

You mean "you weren't joking"

It's not mentioned in the style guide whether to use [sic] when quoting American text so I guess it's up to the individual writers.

I’d imagine that they have some pedantic readers who’d get upset with the misspelling.

I reckon the pendants would number less than those who think it unnecessary and verging on xenophobic.

it's to indicate that the text quote is as-written (which may not necessarily be a _mistake_), and from the perspective of the BBC, "realize" isn't alternative, it's just wrong :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com