A: Did you attend the modern art exhibition at John’s gallery?

    B: Well, I can’t really appreciate the modern (finger quotes) art works he likes.

    Note: Also called air quotes, finger quotes are virtual quotation marks formed in the air with one’s fingers when speaking. This is typically done with hands held shoulder-width apart and at the eye level of the speaker, with the index and middle fingers on each hand flexing at the beginning and end of the phrase being quoted. The air-quoted phrase is — in the most common usage — very short, at most a few words. Air quotes are often used to express satire, sarcasm, irony or euphemism, among others, and are analogous to scare quotes in print. Use of similar gestures has been recorded as early as 1927. 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.