"sic" with "explicitly" (and other adverbs)

Question

I was reading a Wikipedia article on Fermat's principle that quoted some older English text, and one bit confused me:

The principle of Fermat, although it was assumed by that mathematician on hypothetical, or even imaginary grounds, is in fact a fundamental law with respect to undulatory motion, and is explicitly [sic] the basis of every determination in the Huygenian theory...

The use of "sic" is tied in the source code to the word "explicitly," by the way. I thought this might have been a one-off thing, but when you search "explicitly [sic]" you find a host of other examples, most of which seem fine to me:

...there is just one non-Hebrew document from Syria-Palestine which speaks explicitly [sic] of the Hebrews... [2]

'Velikovsky explicitly [sic] predicts the presence of frogs and flies in the clouds of Jupiter...' [3]

He does not claim, and in fact explicitly [sic] denies, that suppositions of like universality attach to critique or textual interpretation... [4]

What's going on here? Is there something wrong with these sentences, or is it some extension of usage?

JulesG. · Answer

There's nothing wrong with the sentences. It is rather an extension of usage.
[sic] can mean that something is not correct in a quote (typo etc) but you could also use it to emphasize some peculiarity of the quoted text (e.g. contradictory or
dubious assertions or a value that deviates heavily from the norm). By using [sic] you normally want to express that you are aware of this discrepancy and you want the reader of your text to know that you yourself find some fact or opinion somewhat shady, not convincing or maybe not trustworthy. The link between [sic] and "explicitly" derives from that. If you say that someone else explicitly said something then you imply that 1. this person really said this and believed it and 2. that it is not your interpretation but in the original text and can be verified, e.g. in the corpus of an author. By using [sic] you somewhat disavow the controversial statement.
Within the database of CliniPharm/CliniTox (https://www.vetpharm.uzh.ch/wir/varia/sic.htm) [sic] is mostly used to indicate that the immediately preceding statement or value can be found exactly like quoted in the original publication but that the validity of the info is very arguable.

"sic" with "explicitly" (and other adverbs)

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