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The plural noun air quotes designates a notional set of quotation marks gestured by a speaker’s fingers in the air, to indicate that what is being said is ironic, mocking or disingenuous, or is not a turn of phrase the speaker would typically employ.
More than sixty years before the plural noun air quotes appeared, the gesture that it refers to was described by S. Francis Howard, of Norwich University (Northfield, Vermont), in the following letter, published in Science: A Weekly Journal devoted to the Advancement of Science (New York City: The Science Press) of Friday 8th July 1927 [page 38, column 2]:
In Science I note that attention is again called to the need of indicating in public addresses the beginning and the closing of a quotation. The terms “quote” and “unquote” are suggested by Mr. Arnold.
Some years ago I knew a very intelligent young woman who used to inform us that her “bright sayings”—some of them—were not original, by raising both hands above her head with the first and second fingers pointing upward. Her fingers were her “quotation marks” and were very easily understood. I have many times since thought that some such signs or signals would be useful for public speakers who wish to indicate when their quotation ends but do not care to say, “the quotation ends here.” Probably both hands are not needed for the signal, but both for speaker and for audience some conventional sign would, it seems to me, be worth adopting.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the plural noun air quotes that I have found:
—Note: The plural noun air quotes occurred in an article entitled Conan better than Chevy after month, by Frazier Moore, which has been misdated to Tuesday 24th March 1987; but, in fact, this article was published on Tuesday 12th October 1993 in The Indiana Gazette (Indiana, Pennsylvania, USA):
1-: From The Irony Epidemic, by Paul Rudnick and Kurt Andersen, published in Spy: The New York Monthly (New York City, New York, USA) of March 1989 [pages 92 to 98]:
[page 94, column 1]:
Betty refers to herself as Bob’s “old lady.” Bob calls himself “Dad.” When Bob and Betty describe themselves in these ways, they raise the middle and forefingers of both hands, momentarily forming twitching bunny ears—air quotes, the quintessential contemporary gesture that says, We’re not serious.
[page 98, column 2]—“the little woman” and “the wife and kids” are in italics in the original text—David Salle (born 1952) is a U.S. painter:
Air quotes abound nowadays. Air quotes eliminate responsibility for one’s actions, one’s choices. Bob tells co-workers with a grin that he’s got to get home to—raise hands, insert air quotes here—the little woman, or the wife and kids, as if his family didn’t really exist, as if he’s still “a wild and crazy guy.” Betty tells friends she’s “ultra–Type A” and, with air quotes, “a yuppie madwoman,” so they won’t imagine she actually enjoys her 12-hour days at the firm.
Air quotes undermine any real art. The paintings of David Salle, endlessly and almost purely referential, Moonlighting, even Who Framed Roger Rabbit—all of them are Xeroxed clip jobs, Cliffs Notes on fondly remembered original works of the past. Real art and regular hobbies you can happily experience in solitude. But given the choice, who would play miniature golf or go to a Cindy Sherman show alone? Art in the age of air quotes requires a fellow smirker, someone else smart enough to get it. Irony is a group sport. A certain sort of postgraduate boy can go with other postgraduate boys to the Baby Doll Lounge to watch strippers and enjoy the shows ironically; alone, he would consider himself pathetic.
The following is the front cover of Spy: The New York Monthly (New York City, New York, USA) of March 1989, showing a man making the gesture that the plural noun air quotes refers to:
2-: From The Love Connection: Romance writers discover big business between the covers, by Paula Balik, Express-News staff writer, published in the Express-News (San Antonio, Texas, USA) of Sunday 25th March 1990 [page 2-G, column 1]:
“Name recognition is very important,” says Sarah Edwards, who is really Sharon Bills, half of a writing team with husband Robert, a Navy physicist.
“Until you’ve written a dozen books or so, you’re not a ‘name,’” she says, her fingers marking air quotes around the last word.
3-: From Loose tongue is risky for those in public eye, by the U.S. columnist Bob Talbert (1936-1999), published in the Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan, USA) of Tuesday 22nd May 1990 [page 5F, column 4]—Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017) was a U.S. journalist and author:
—However, here, the plural noun air quotes designates invented citations (cf. the phrase castles in the air):
I’ve little sympathy for Breslin, whose credibility I’ve never trusted, because he allegedly makes up quotes from people who don’t even exist. I’ve talked to too many people covering the same events Breslin covers who have given me chapter-and-verse on Breslin’s “air” quotes.
I’m not taking [sic] about columns of imaginary conversations between the writer and subject or contrived, made-up interviews, boring sophomoric journalistic excesses even some columnists in this town resort to from time to time.
I’m talking about making up a great quote and passing it off for real. Breslin even has owned up to this practice, using some strange logic that it captures the essence of the story even though no one actually said it.
4-: From An Unmarried Spouse Speaks Out, by Kenneth Ellingwood, published in The Valley Advocate (Hatfield, Massachusetts, USA) of Monday 19th November 1990 [page 18, column 3]:
Language is the currency of thought, a mirror of our attitudes, and labels do matter. Without language on our side, we [i.e., the unmarried spouses] can’t even be seen.
[…]
We have tried to come up with words to define ourselves in alternative family arrangements. Some of us can use these without feeling self-conscious or gesturing with air quotes. Not me. I confess to briefly slipping out of a cocktail party last year in order to avoid groping for a title when the time came for public introductions.
5-: From a portrait of Tracy Wolff, wife of Nelson Wolff, who was then the Mayor of San Antonio—portrait by Paula Allen, published in the San Antonio Express-News (San Antonio, Texas, USA) of Sunday 18th August 1991 [Magazine: page 15, column 1]:
Before graduating, she married her first husband—Nelson Wolff is her third—and dropped out of school to help put him through college and graduate school. “I became a ‘working wife,’” she says wryly, her fingers putting air quotes around the phrase.
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