Air quotes

Use of similar gestures has been recorded as early as 1927,[1] and Glenda Farrell used air quotes in a 1937 screwball comedy, "Breakfast for Two."

[2] The term "air quotes" first appeared in a 1989 Spy magazine article by Paul Rudnick and Kurt Andersen, who state it became a common gesture around 1980.

[3] The gesture was used routinely in the TV show Celebrity Charades (1979) as the standard signal for a quote or phrase.

Evil makes exaggerated use of air quotes when explaining matters to his henchmen, particularly while using real phrases he erroneously believes himself to have coined such as "laser" and "Death Star."

[5] The Washington Post calls air quotes "a snide, easy way to discredit or distance oneself from the other side’s words.