Noah, you're correct... "sic" means "thus" or "so" in Latin.

I know why I thought it meant "such." It does... if you're speaking the Doric (Aberdonian Scots). Let this be a lesson to me to not try to speak two languages at one time. Heh. :)

Sol, the word for what is going on when a brand name becomes a standard English term seems to be "genericide," oddly enough. http://www.wordspy.com/words/genericide.asp

The most commonly used phrase for such a term appears to be "generic word."

There is some consensus on these new words, but no hard-and-fast rule. Language is like that.

And why is your pharmacist upset? He's making a profit. Maybe there are some other issues there. (just kidding) :)

All of the 10+ dictionaries I consulted clearly specify that the T should be pronounced. The Merriam-Webster 10th Online, however, seems to indicate that the T is sometimes optional (not, I gather, that it should be optional).

Dictionaries are good for this sort of thing. Google is good for other things. It's good to know the difference.

Although I may be wrong about the recent coinage; see this Language Log entry:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001761.html

Wendy, "tsunami" is the technical term for it. Why on earth must you be so oversensitive?

Dyske, I was informed (can't find the link anymore) that the word was coined by seismologists (earthquake scientists) quite recently. They needed a specific word to describe what happened in the special case of a tidal wave caused by an earthquake at sea. Although the word is derived from Japanese root elements, I was under the impression that it was not a "natural" Japanese word. Does this confirm what you know?

lol degustibus. For the rest of us... if you did not understand deg's response, google "ghoti." You'll find some interesting thoughts on spelling in English also.

Manilavanilla, no existing word is completely a violation of spelling rules. It;s just that the rules are a bit more complex than you think. In the particular case of "colonel," the spelling is correct but the pronunciation is "incorrect." Mindbending, I know.

Yes, it is only used in a direct quotation. You can also use "[sic]" to avoid confusion. Suppose you had a quotation in which someone wrote an ellipsis (like this quote from a friend's e-mail):

"Well... maybe if you want to... we can go eat at that new Thai place tonight."

Normally the ellipsis (the three dots) are used within a quotation to show omitted material. But my friend used them to show a pause in thought. So to avoid confusion when quoting the material, I could write this:

"Well... [sic] maybe if you want to... [sic] we can go eat at that new Thai place tonight."

I think but I'm not absolutely sure (and I'm too lazy to look it up since Christ it's early) that it's Latin for "such."

That's "produced." Dyske, can we have a preview mode? Please? :)

hey Goossun... Happy New Year :) I'll give the common terms as they are used by retail clerks and shoppers. If you want more technical terms, my dad once consulted for a company that producted the machines, and I can ask him for you.

- The machine is called a POS machine. (POS stands for "point of sale.") Many people don't know this term, though, and they just refer to the "credit card reader" or "that credit card thing."
- You "swipe" the card through the slot.
- The receipt is printed out by the receipt printer. I'm not aware of a more specific name.
- When you hand the card to the cashier, there's no special term. You're just paying with a credit card.
- When you use the machine and enter a PIN, you're using a "debit card" that acts like an electronic check, rather than a credit card (though the credit card companies usually issue them). The money comes out of your checking account instead of a line of credit.
- The little, fussy, low-tech apparatus that makes an impression of the actual card is called an "imprinter."

Additional words? Hmm.

- When someone sends you an e-mail or calls you, pretending to be your bank or a merchant and asking for your credit card information, but their true purpose is to steal from you by using your credit card number to buy things, it's called "phishing." This is a hacker spelling of "fishing."
- The carbon copies made by an imprinter on a multiple-part form are referred to as "carbons." The form itself is often referred to as a "slip."
- When someone calls their bank to say their card is missing, it's "reported stolen" whether it's really been stolen or not. If the bank then refuses to honor the card, the card is "rejected."
- The credit card issuer is a "creditor," and the credit card holder is a "debtor." The United States law that regulates the creditor-debtor relationship is called the FCRA, "Fair Credit Reporting Act."

I personally don't use credit cards, because I can't understand why anyone would want to continually spend money before they have it, as opposed to taking a loan out for a specific purpose.

I'll merely point out that I agree with Craig's comment. That is all I wanted to say.

:)