A perfectly reasonable news story might include something like this: “The report stated ‘my friend wanted me to sick my dog on them but I wouldn’t…’[sic].” What it means is that the friend recommended commanding the doc to attack, the dog owner misspelled “sic,” and the news reporter wanted to make it clear with [sic] that they were just reporting the mistake.
There are two words “sic” meaning (1) a command to a dog and (2) pointing out that an error was present in the original version. They are different, unrelated words. The command to the dog can also be used in regard to people, as in “Jane sicced John on fixing the quality problem in dog biscuit production.” Even though it’s spelled “sic” nowadays, to the extent that some news reporters would feel compelled to “sic” “sick,” “sic” used to be spelled “sick.” (I’ve been waiting a long time to write that sentence.) This “sic” is really a form of the word “seek” with a variant pronunciation from dialectical English. It did, in fact, originate with dogs, because “seek” was a command given to dogs to “find and attack” so long ago it appears in Beowulf. Its development into “sic” (or “sick”) is comparatively recent, as it appeared only in the 1800s.
The other word “sic”, used to indicate that you’re repeating an error already made and it’s really not your mistake at all, is simply the Latin word for “thus.” Its only use in English, as far as I can find, is when it’s put in parentheses (or brackets) to indicate an existing error. It can also be used as a subtle criticism of an original author’s choice or words even though the words are technically correct, but that’s a bit of a cheap shot.
As a cheap shot, it’s not all that bad, really; not anything you’d naturally attribute to a real charlatan. A “charlatan,” of course, is a mountebank, a con artist, a fraud! The term appeared in English in the 1600s in connection with a new profession that also appeared around that time: patent medicine salesman. “Patent medicine,” then and now, was any useless concoction of ingredients with a fancy label slapped on, sold by itinerant pitchmen as a curative for whatever might be bothering you. Or even everything that might be bothering you. These pitchmen were so annoying they spawned several new words that became part of the language. They were called “quacksalvers” because of the quacking sound of their repetitive pitch when they were trying to convince people to buy useless salves. “Quacksalver” became shortened to “quack”, which is still used to describe phony doctors. “Mountebank” comes from the Italian phrase “monta in banco,” which means “climb up on a bench” — which the pitchmen typically would do when addressing the crowd they hoped would gather around.
“Charlatan” also (probably) comes from Italian roots: the Italian word “ciarlatano,” which means to blabber. Or it might come from a different Italian source: it might be a version of “cerretano,” which is a vendor of fake indulgences supposedly from the Pope. “Cerretano” comes from the Italian village of the same name, which back in the day must have been known as the home town of such salesmen. Somebody should sic the dogs on those guys.
