Talk:Air quotes

Philosophers and Linguists

I once read that it was used systematically by a well-known logician or linguist (Tarski? Chomsky?) in the 1950's to convey in lectures the use of a quoted linguistic expression as a name for its own form, i.e. " 'snow' " means the word "snow" whereas "snow" refers to the substance snow.

Does anyone have a source for this? It would give some weight to the history of this sign well before its passage into popular culture. -- 84.227.230.13 (talk) 07:25, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Victor Borge

I would have thought that the likeliest origin for air quotes is Victor Borges visual punctuation. -- 82.181.254.50 17:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Germans?

I'm a German native speaker, and I've never seen any of my fellow speakers using an "inverted hand" to mimic German-style quotes, and the whole idea seems pretty silly to me. I'd say this is an urban legend.

Also, the famous "laser" quote performed by Dr. Evil in Austin Powers should be added as an example. --Mkill (talk) 05:44, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, there should be some reference to Austin powers. That movie really boosted the popularity of air qotes--58.173.93.72 (talk) 13:03, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Guillemets

How would one do a Guillemet finger quote? Scytheandsickle (talk) 21:14, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I think WP:V needs to be considered. I've never seen it, at least. Codster925 (talk) 04:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Image

Added image to demonstrate air quotes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Historydude69 (talk • contribs) 21:14, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Only at the begin and end?

Don't people also keep flexing their fingers thru out the whole word or phrase somtimes? --TiagoTiago (talk) 01:17, 10 September 2011 (UTC)