I just read that the “ick” sound at the end of a word is spelled “ick” when that word has only one syllable, as is sick. When the word has more than one syllable, that same sound is spelled “ic,” as in psychic. Why this language has to be so confusing, I will never know . . .
I saw this yesterday Barbara and thought of BB’s Words
Meteorological terms and phrases are frequently used to describe the situations in which we find ourselves along with our emotions and health. Even Eeyore from A. A. Milne’s famous children’s story Winnie the Pooh, has a dour demeanor that is often depicted as his own personal raincloud.
She has such a sunny personality!
Ugh, I’m feeling under the weather.
He’s been under a dark cloud all day.
Hey, don’t rain on my parade!
This is great! Thanks, Sue!
I think the reason why our language is so complicated is because it gives the linguistics academic such a kick.
HAHA – that’s great! And what a “quick” response!
I didn’t know that.
What about exceptions, like ‘sic’, used by an editor who points out that a speaker or writer who wrote or said something grammatically incorrect (as if to publicly pass blame for the grammar)?
Hi, John. Thanks for pointing out an exception to the rule! Darn it, anyway. But I loved the input. FYI, I have looked and looked to see if I could find a reason why “sic” is different. I thought at first that it was an abbreviation from a longer word that started with “sic,” but it doesn’t appear that way. Oh, well, I’ll keep trying to find grammar rules that always apply! (haha – wish me luck – if you know of any, please let me know!)
Hi, Barbara. My two years of high school Latin kicked in. Not specifically on ‘sic’ but that a large part of the English language is derived from Latin. Google confirmed it.
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Sic is a Latin term meaning “thus.” It is used to indicate that something incorrectly written is intentionally being left as it was in the original. Sic is usually italicized and always surrounded by brackets to indicate that it was not part of the original.
The Blue Book of Grammar › data › …
Using [sic] Properly – Grammar and Punctuation
Great information, John! I looked up sic myself since I thought it was a Latin term (I also took Latin in HS) and saw what you did. I also read that sic appears to be falling out of favor because it is sort of “elitist” in that it points out other people’s errors. This seems to happen a lot in the course of translation of scholarly articles. Very interesting!