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I am typing into a computer a Civil War diary. The (unknown) author's spelling errors are actually quite consistent.

Example: "Troutman told Doug and me to ride ahead and riddjup an area to make camp." Troutman was probably from Pennsylvania and meant "read-up" the camp. The author spells this as riddjup about 40 times in a 250 page diary.

Is it necessary in a transcription to use "sic." at every error, or is it sufficient to use it only at the first occurrence.

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    I wouldn’t use sic at all there. Make a note at the beginning instead that the original spelling has been maintained. That’s part of the charm of the charm, and dotting it with sic’s all over the place would ruin that. (Also, did you mean ready up, or does reading up a camp have some meaning I’m not familiar with?)
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jun 18, 2019 at 22:48
  • @Janus Bahs Jacquet I have heard both "read-up" and "ready-up". I like your suggestion of making a note at the beginning that the original spelling has been maintained, and will do just that. Thank you.
    – Wesley Kohn
    Commented Jun 18, 2019 at 22:54
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    @Cascabel No problem. But, since you both suggest "ready up", I am wondering now if I am misreading a "j" for a "y". The diary is in a library and I plan to examine it for other y's in this document to see if I am in error about it being a j.
    – Wesley Kohn
    Commented Jun 18, 2019 at 23:07
  • @Cascabel About 99.99% of my questions regarding English are answered by me typing in the Title - and then being offered duplicate entries by the website. Vrit didn't come up, but it is a very interesting post. Thanks for the link.
    – Wesley Kohn
    Commented Jun 18, 2019 at 23:23
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    As it stands, this question is off-topic as it's about an approach to writing (but would very much be on-topic on our other site Writing). However, looks to me like there's an opportunity to edit this into an excellent question about the mystery word riddjup/riddyup, and @Cascabel looks like she has the germ of an answer. Seriously, we love questions about obscure regional usages!
    – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten
    Commented Jun 19, 2019 at 1:08

1 Answer 1

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Think how you'd feel reading [sic] for the hundredth time on the same word, and edit accordingly.

And, of course, if you're doing dialect, no [sic] is needed. Huck Finn has not a single [sic]. [Sic] is there to assure the reader it's not your mistake. This one's obvious.

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