%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
Items to fit into your overhead compartment |
|
Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
| Yes, sometimes I find an article about actual writing instead of just writing about an article. This one, especially helpful to fellow nonfiction writers, is from Mental Floss: What ‘Sic’ Means—And How To Use It Correctly  The way writers use the word ‘sic’ is a little more nuanced than its literal meaning Of course, I knew what 'sic' translates to from a very early age, being a Virginian. "Sic Semper Tyrannis" is our state motto, and it's on the flag right under the boob. But it's a little different when used on its own, in the service of clarifying quoted material. You’re perusing a news article when there, right in the middle of a quote, is the word sic encased in brackets. Since this is far from the first article you’ve ever read, maybe you already know what sic signifies: that the word or phrase directly preceding it hasn’t been altered from the original quote—even though it might be misspelled or simply a strange word choice. I've used it myself, though not without wondering at its utility when posting stuff on the internet. I'd assume that any quote I read online has been copy/pasted (it's what I do), so any errors or typos get copied exactly. Probably no need for the three-letter editorial insertion, and it often feels like I'm just being smug, as in "This is an error I wouldn't make, and I caught it, ain't I smart?" But why sic? The shortest possible answer to that question is this: Because Latin. It's often called a dead language, but I prefer to think of it as a zombie shuffling across the written word. An undead language. It literally means “thus” or “so,” as in sic semper tyrannis, “thus ever to tyrants.” In case you were still wondering what our state motto meant. It was also the most famous line quoted by actor John Wilkes Booth. But that hasn’t stopped people from coming up with a slew of “backronyms” that describe it in slightly more detail: “spelling is correct,” “said in copy,” “said in context,” etc. Okay, first of all, I see what you did there with your sneakly little zombie Latin "etc." Second, backronyms annoy me. Sure, they serve a mnemonic purpose, but then you get people believing and insisting that "tips" came from "to insure prompt service" (it certainly did not) or that "fuck" came from "for unlawful carnal knowledge" or "fornicating under consent of the King" (it absolutely, positively, did not.) The only exceptions for my annoyance are humorous ones, like Ford (found on road, dead) or Chevrolet (cracked heads, every valve rattles, oil leaks every time). I doubt anyone actually believes those car brands started out as acronyms. As for when you might want to use it, there are a couple different scenarios. One is when a quote features a typo, a misspelling, or a grammatical error. One of my smuggest uses for it is when I catch someone doing something like mistaking "its" for "it's" or vice-versa (dammit, zombie!). Sic can also come in handy if you’re writing something that the reader might accidentally interpret as a mistake. That's a little less obvious, but the article provides an example. As the Columbia Journalism Review’s Merrill Perlman put it in 2014, sic “can come off as snarky, giving a sense of ‘we know better,’ at the expense of the original author.” Which is exactly what I'd expect someone hit with a sic to say. In 2019, the Associated Press Stylebook announced that it would henceforth retire sic for good. Yeah, let me know when The New Yorker follows suit. “Most people don’t speak, off the cuff, in grammatically perfect sentences,” the Stylebook tweeted. Okay, but what about written works? We tend to hold them to a higher standard, especially nonfiction works. If I had to slog through a technical paper written in the style of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, I'd give up. Hell, I gave up on Faulkner. For example, if a source says “Using sic make the writer seem insufferably smug,” you could update “make” to “make[s]” without employing sic and proving your source’s point. Nah, I'd rather be insufferably smug. There are, as always, exceptions. Not every technical error in writing results in an ambiguous meaning. Like when someone uses "it's" incorrectly, where it's obviously meant to be a possessive and not a contraction. But that error is so egregious, I'm going to call it out anyway. Which, of course, guarantees that I'll mess it up sometimes, and the zombies will come for my brains. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
