Q. Dear Editor, I am editing a quarterly bulletin for a church, and have run into a problem. “It’s” is confused with “its” in a lengthy article an author quotes in his text. Given your feeling on the overuse of “sic,” I’m wondering how best to handle this. Simply ignore it, or “sic” it? I appreciate your help. Thank you.
A. A bit of quiet copyediting is best in cases like this, where sic would serve only to embarrass the original author and as a result reflect poorly on the current author as well.