What does it mean when someone puts [sic] in text?

Question

I've seen it pretty often lately, and I really don't understand what it means. Here's the latest one I've seen
'"Consider, too, the Health Jolting Chair of the 1880s. It resembled a garden-variety armchair--only rigged with springs and levers. Its advertising promised that the chair would give "efficient exercise to the essentially important nutritive organs of the body."
According to the manufacturer, all that jiggling and jolting was essential for "millions of human beings who may be living sedentary lives through choice or necessity." The chair was, "For certain classes of invalids a veritable Treasure-Trove." [sic]"

Also, if you could, explain what it means when someone puts something in these brackets [ ] when quoting someone else when the person obviously didn't say what's in brackets?

I must've missed that day of English class, becuase the brackets make no sense to me.

The reason I had the other quotation mark around [sic] is because it was part of the entire quote I used as an example.

Answer 1

sic is a Latin word, it is not an abbreviation. It means thus, or like so and means that what you just read appeared like that in the original text and is not an error of the author's. Brackets inside of a quotation are to indicate words that have been added to clear up the meaning of the quotation, and they are not part of the original quote.

the extra quotation mark and the brackets around sic are not needed and are incorrect in your example

Answer 2

It spoke of the chair giving efficient exercise to certain parts of the body and I know in a foreign country (will not say what country), sic means a man's private part. As for the brackets, they are not direct quotes. A direct quote is when you use " " at beginning and end of the sentence. The brackets are usually used around a word or phrase showing another way of looking at what you just mentioned. For example, if I say something and I am not sure how a person would take it, but I meant it as a joke, I would put (smile) after to indicate that it was just a joke or if I say, I fell down and all my belongings were showing (breasts). You see, I used the word belongings and you might have been wondering what do I mean by belongings, so I wrote (breasts) to let you know what I was referring to. Maybe they are trying to say that with the way the chair works, it might help with someone's sexual performance because the way the chair jolts, it gives the person's body a certain sexual movement.

Answer 3

It's a quote that's been taken over litterally, including spelling mistakes the original author made. If he doesn't include the "sic" (Latin, means "like this"/"the same"), people may think the user of the quote made the spelling mistakes and blame him/her for them. Jo

Answer 4

Thus; so. Used to indicate that a quoted passage, especially one containing an error or unconventional spelling, has been retained in its original form or written intentionally.

[Latin sīc.]

Answer 5

It is supposed to mean that the word they are quoting is misspelled or somehow incorrect, but they want you to know that they are quoting someone else and are not correcting them.