Just saw this in the newsletter:
I always thought sic was actually an acronym "Spelling/speech in context".
Is there any truth to this understanding?
It's one of those acronyms that are coined after the fact.
Some other examples of spurious acronyms:
news : north, east, west, south
golf : gentlemen only, ladies forbidden
tip : to insure promptness
-Anu Garg
Sic (sic) doesn't have any secret, Latin or something, meaning, then? [disappointment e]
Well, "sic" does mean "thus", or "as follows" in Latin, but usually editors place it after the error, so it wouldn't make sense that it was the origin.
Some people say camping is boring. I say it's in tents.
AniamL has it right that it's latin for 'thus'. The sense is that the editor is saying "It was thus in the original (so it ain't my mistake)."
And I have occasionally seen the word for setting a dog on a person as sicc, which always struck me as odd.
American history buffs are also familiar with the Latin word ‘sic’ as being part of the declaration shouted to the audience of Ford’s theatre by John Wilkes Booth immediately after he shot President Lincoln in the back of the head: “Sic semper tyrannis!” Thus always to tyrants! (Anu may have already mentioned this in his AWAD email message, I can’t remember.)
Denizens of the state of Virginia also know “Sic semper tyrannis!” as their state motto.
Our own AnnaStrophic used the word ‘sic’ in the cleverest and funniest manner I’ve ever seen when she responded to a post by writing: “That was great … Made me litereally [sic] LOL!”
Of course, the “[sic]” is not mine.
The command to a dog to attack, according to AH, is also spelled ‘sic’. If one were to translate all of the Latin words in the sentence, “Sic ‘em, Fido!” into English, the command would be: “Thus ‘em, I Am Faithful!”
“Thus ‘em, I Am Faithful!” 
Yeah, I thought the "made me sic" was great, too!
Fido means 'I am faithful'? Cool! No wonder it got to be so well-known as a name for a dog.
Golly--that made me really think about how lacking my education was, in that I didn't take Latin.
I also realized about half an hour after I posted (but didn't have time to add an edit then) that, had I thought about it, I knew that 'sic' meant 'thus': somewhere along the way I remember reading 'Sic transit gloria mundi' and its translation of 'Thus passes the ...glory?...of the world'. And y'all good pronunciators of Latin would be rolling in your graves, if you were in your graves, at my pronunciation of that phrase.
Other places the Latin and/or Romantic forms of ‘faith’ and ‘faithful’, etc. show up in English, and our common consciousness, are in the US Marines’ motto: “Semper Fidelis”, which means “Always Faithful” (also shortened to: “Semper Fi”), Fidel Castro, Fidelity Investments, infidel, infidelity, Hi-fidelity (Hi-Fi), etc.
'Sic transit gloria mundi'
I think you’re pretty darned close, Jackie; the meaning is certainly correct. If I’m not mistaken, the direct translation is: “Thus the glory of the world passes [away].” Sacklunch.net reports that this is declared to the Pope upon his installation as the head of the Catholic Church. I vaguely recall something about this being declared to Roman heroes being paraded into Rome, too. I’m probably wrong about that one though.
Reminds me of the boat trip I took to Europe; I was sick the whole way, arriving on a Sunday night. The next day I Felt much much better and sent a wire home: "Sick transit; glorious Monday."
On the other hand, my experience is actually true: In the international transit area of the Miami airport a few years ago, the airport employee who herded us from one gate to the next wore the name tag "Gloria Mundy". I'm still trying, but not very hard or very often, to make a pun out of this.
I’m half inclined to think that her parents took ‘gloria mundi’ into consideration when naming her, rather than her first name ending up that way by chance. Certainly stranger coincidental names have happened, though.
> I'm still trying, but not very hard or very often, to make a pun out of this.
Transit: Gloria Mundy [sic!]
Transit: Gloria Mundy (sic!)
Perfect (though I would use square brackets)! Thanks, Max.
“That was great … Made me litereally [sic] LOL!”
I'm not sure the author's intent was understood (not that it should be, necessarily, but)... [sic] was after the fact. I wouldn't LOL at my own jokes!
AnnaStrophic:
Here is your post in full:
That was great, J. Made me litereally [sic] LOL!
This was your response to my foodware taxonomical classification post.
I omitted the “J.” in my original reference to your post because I didn’t want it to seem like I was trying to draw attention to my attempt at humor in the foodware post.
It was not my intention to misrepresent your words, meaning, or intent. I only wanted to point out a humorous post you made that was apropos to this thread.
I was just saying that I wasn't as funny as you thought (maybe I should've just left things as they were and rested on my fragile laurels...). Your post made me laugh out loud, literally. I decided to type "litereally" and then inserted a [sic] as an afterthought so it wouldn't look like a typo. The sic = sick was gratuitous.
Or..Call an ambulance for Glorida Mundy?
By the way..perhaps Glorida Smith married N.E. Mundy?