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The Secret History of the Manicule, the Little Hand that’s Everywhere

The Secret History of the Manicule, the Little Hand that’s Everywhere

They first occurred in 1479 and are now most commonly used in emoji form: little hands like 👉 these 👈. An eye-catcher that always directs your attention to something else (see how it’s impossible to properly reference them in the sentence before?). This is their story.


From Weekly Filet #524, in April 2025.

💔 Some older links might be broken — that's the state of the web, sadly. If you find one, ping me.

👆 This is one of 2852 recommended links, manually curated since 2011. Discover more.