Industry classification

Today I happened to ask myself, "What is a SIC code anyway?" I've got some data on organizations, which includes a field called "vertical" - a marketing term not really a precise data point. So, I wanted to know if the data in "vertical" might map to an actual standard like "SIC". If so, could I apply a lookup function to transform my data?

SIC codes are outdated. Invented long before the Internet, and before "Services" was such a big component of the US economy. An effort to replace the system with something more current: NAICS; which was seemingly propelled by the effort to introduce NAFTA; has failed to really take hold. I wonder why any useful industry classification system should start with "North American"?

SIC is weird because there are 99 somewhat arbitrary and dated "major groups" that everything must fall under.

For example, in SIC, a "political" organization would be classified under major group #86 "membership organization". Then, that major group is further subdivided into only 6 choices plus a big "Other" See for example

1. https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/sic_manual.display?id=72&tab=group
2. https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/sic_manual.display?id=218&tab=description