I have a question for advice from this group that might have political implications.

In an article I'm about to submit, I cite a number of discussions on this list and humanist about the use of language, especially English. The authors are both native English speakers and non-native speakers and, as is typical in emails, there are a number of small typos. solecisms, and the like.

Currently, I have a note at the first citation indicating that "as is normal in as conversational a medium as email correspondence, the quoted passages have small typographical errors and other solecisms. These have not been corrected or otherwise noted." My reason for this is that I don't want to put in a lot of sic or corrections in square brackets. Although I'm a terrible typo offender myself, the case can be more politicised it seems to me when dealing with non-native speakers. I'm uncomfortable acting either as judge or, worse, in my case, calling attention to "errors"--especially since I think they are really more issues of register than actual errors.

I could silently correct them, of course, as well, but I don't like that either, in case what I think is an obvious correction turns out to misrepresent something.

What do other people think? I've seen sic used before as a form of ad hominem attack and so I generally really hate using it if I can avoid it. But since it also seems nuts to pepper the correspondence with square brackets (and since that could have the same effect as a lot of sics), I don't want to do that either.

Is there a better solution than simply flagging the register difference, as I currently do?

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Daniel Paul O'Donnell
Professor of English
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Canada

+1 403 393-2539

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