can someone explain ''sic''? Any explanation I have read is simply not an explanation.

When read in a sentence, from whom does this word come? The writer of the sentence or the subject of the sentence

will someone please explain.....to this 60+ poet ??? milkmilkdud@aol.com

Sic is used by a writer when she quotes another writer and notices that there is a spelling or grammatical error in the text quoted. The sic (Latin for thus) is placed after the error. It's mainly a way to say, "hey, I know he made a mistake, but I must quote him accurately (i.e., with the error intact).

zmjezhd
Thank You Thank You Thank You!
That is a perfect explanation
now I understand after all these years.

I'm in southern Mississippi
where are you?

You're welcome. I am in the San Francisco Bay Area. I once passed through Mississippi on a bus from New Orleans to Washington DC. I remember it being verdant.

I'd place "verdant" as a definite Type-2, I like it and encourage its use wherever applicable

yes, it is now verdant once again, since Katrina swept everything out sea...........

But..... changing daily as progress continues

I have several friends in San Francisco/San Raphael........ working with animal rescue

I thank you as well. Sic was a mystery I had not solved till now either. Or maybe I once knew, but forgot. The same sic as in "sic transit gloria mundi"?

And in sic semper tyrannis. The very one. Also the column Sic! Sic! Sic! in Verbatim.

Sic has some even more famous relatives. It is the Latin word behind Italian, Spanish, French si 'yes'. There was no Latin word for yes (or no). One answered a question with the verb in the affimative or the negative, or by using an adverb to indicate the speakers attitude towards the querstion: e.g., certe 'absolutely', fortasse 'perhaps'. In the Late Latin, folks started to use sic 'thus' and non 'not' to answer yes and no questions.

As for book title, the famous monk Peter Abelard (Heloise's tutor, then lover) wrote one called: Sic et non 'Yes and No'.

your link seems to have no such column. but determined (and contumacious) as I am wont to be, I eventually found a sample:

Sic! Sic! Sic!
Verbatim | January 01, 2003
Seen on a door in Chicago: "Motion, Inc. has moved. Please drop off all packages and mail to Suite 150, 1st floor." [You can't say they didn't warn you.]

well, that was anticlimactic..

The story of Abelard, who said "sic et non" is remembered in a poem by François Villon. Villon's poem is remembered in a song by George Brassens.

Ballade des dames du temps jadis:
link: the complete poem

Abelard and Heloïse:

"Où est la très sage Helloïs,
Pour qui fut chastré et puis moyne
Pierre Esbaillart à Saint-Denis?
Pour son amour ot cest essoyne.
Semblablement, où est la royne
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust gecté en ung sac en Saine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!
----------------
Where is the learned Heloise,
For whom was gelded that poor man,
Pierre Abelard of Saint Denis?
With love of her his pains began.
The queen who wanted Buridan
Bagged and dropped in the Seine, they say,
Was a very passionate woman,
But where are the snows of yesterday?
----------------
Prince, don't ask me in a week
nor in a year what place they are;
I can only give you this refrain:
Where are the snows of yesteryear?"

link: the Brassens song