Pinched fingers

Michael Peña doing the gesture alongside Diego Luna at Lucca Comics & Games in 2018.

Pinched fingers is a polysemious hand gesture, mainly associated with Italian gesticulation. It is meant to express disbelief at what the other person is saying or doing, and/or to ridicule their opinions.

There is no single codified term to identify this gesture in Italian, as it is variously described as mano a borsa (fingertip purse or purse hand), mano a tulipano (finger tulip), or mano a pigna (finger pinecone). In English, it is sometimes referred as Che vuoi? (Italian pronunciation: [ke vˈvwɔi]; transl. "what do you want?"), ma che vuoi?, ma che dici?,ma che stai dicendo? ("what are you talking about?"), or simply che? ("what?").


Gesture

This gesture is produced where the tips of all the fingers of one hand are brought together to form an "upward pointing cone", with the hand then being moved up and down either from the wrist or forearm. The hand can be motionless while performing this hand gesture, or can also be shaken up and down, if the person wants to express impatience.

Usage

While it is particularly common in Southern Italy, it is a gesture that is widely used across the country. The frequency and speed of vertical motion indicates the level of frustration of the speaker.

The gesture is also widely used in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and other Latin American countries with large Italian diasporas, with similar connotations.

In West Asia and North Africa

Gesture for Hebrew word rega (רֶגַע, "a moment") as used in Israeli Sign Language

In the Arab world and in Israel, the pinched hand gesture has the meanings "wait a minute" and "have patience", corresponding to Arabic words sabar (صَبْرْ, "patience"), shway, shway (شْوَيْ شْوَيْ, "little-by-little"), and Hebrew rak rega (רַק רֶגַע, "only a moment") and savlanut (סַבְלָנוּת, "patience").

Emoji

The emoji for the gesture was proposed in 2019 as submission L2/19-159, approved as part of Unicode 13.0 in 2020, and added later that year as U+1F90C 🤌 PINCHED FINGERS in Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs Unicode block.

References

  1. ↑ "🤌 Pinched Fingers Emoji". Emojipedia. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  2. 1 2 Assalto, Maurizio (18 July 2022). "Dammi il cinque! (anzi, no) | La mano a borsa e altre espressioni misteriose che traducono la nostra gestualità". Linkiesta.it (in Italian). Retrieved 15 September 2026.
  3. ↑ "Gesti - Enciclopedia". Treccani (in Italian). Retrieved 15 September 2026.
  4. ↑ Cassone, Alberto. "Gesti italiani". Italiana - Lingua e Cultura (in Italian). Archived from the original on 20 September 2020. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  5. ↑ Marchetti, Silvia (29 May 2015). "Italian hand gestures everyone should know". CNN Travel. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  6. 1 2 Farano, Adriano; Lee, Jennifer; Schear, Theo (17 April 2019). ""What do you want?" Pinched Fingers Emoji Proposal" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 May 2019.
  7. 1 2 Munari, Bruno (2013) [1963]. Supplemento al dizionario italiano (in Italian). Mantova: Corraini. ISBN 978-88-86250-91-7. OCLC 48965019.
  8. ↑ Kendon, Adam (1995). "Gestures as illocutionary and discourse structure markers in Souther Italian conversation" (PDF). Journal of Pragmatics. 23. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 October 2020.
  9. ↑ "Esempi ed interpretazioni di tipici gesti napoletani". www.portanapoli.com (in Italian). Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  10. ↑ ""Qué te pasa" el popular gesto en Argentina e Italia se convierte en emoji". El Tribuno (in Spanish). 30 January 2020. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
  11. ↑ ""Qué te pasa": llega el emoji de un gesto típico de Argentina e Italia". Telefe Noticias (in Spanish). 30 January 2020. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
  12. ↑ Collins, Liat (7 February 2020). "My Word: Emojis, signs and mixed messages". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 27 July 2026.
  13. ↑ Keyser, Zachary (2 February 2020). "World rejoices as 'pinched fingers' or 'wait a sec' emoji becomes a thing". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 27 July 2026.
  14. ↑ Bennett, Stephen (2024). "Chapter 28. Left". Letters from Arabia. p. 143. ISBN 978-3991468790. Retrieved 27 July 2026. Hand gestures by Arabs very much form part of daily life,[...] with the thumb and fingers pinched upwards together signifying that one should wait.
  15. ↑ "Emoji Recently Added, v13.0". Unicode. Retrieved 30 January 2020.