Manicule is currently a Language and literature good article nominee. Nominated by Rjjiii (talk) at 22:07, 15 March 2026 (UTC)
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Short description: Symbol depicting a pointing finger
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This article was copy edited by Littenberg, a member of the Guild of Copy Editors.Guild of Copy EditorsWikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsTemplate:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsGuild of Copy Editors
In Mac OS
In Mac OS X 10.4.10, running Firefox 2.0.0.7, the "fist" character shows up incorrectly. It's rendered similarly to U+252B, although I'm not sure if that's the actual character being displayed.
I tried to correct the problem by directly entering the proper Unicode character (U+261F), but couldn't figure out how to do so. Could someone else fix this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.21.192.112 (talk • contribs) 23:47, 22 September 2007
I have no idea what the index looks like. My computer can't read it, and shows a little box instead. Is there any way to show the index without resorting to typing it? Savie Kumara 07:37, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps for this and other similar non-standard character articles, the right-hand summary/navigation pane could feature a graphic of the character, rather than the large-point character itself. Like many, I see only the no-character box.
If there are instructions somewhere in Wikipedia for adjusting your browser to display these characters correctly, a link could be prominently featured. ozNoz 23:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
In video games
Should this article make mention of the similar hand symbol used as a cursor in many video games? Kouban (talk) 22:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Good idea, done. Theseven7 (talk) 18:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Say, this symbol isn't supposed to look like a question mark - is it? 75.129.135.47 (talk) 08:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
That is an up fist sign, not a sideway. This is dealing with a unique symbol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.184.14.79 (talk • contribs) 19:31, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
See elaborate signboard in this image
In place of modern arrows
The article probably should point out that in the 19th century and before, this was commonly used as a directional indicator in a variety of contexts where we would now generally use abstract arrow shapes (see the pointing sign in the image). Churchh (talk) 22:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
20th Century Boys
The index is (or was, I can't recall) used in Shonen Jump magazine to mark the page numbers, and is used as a rather major detail in Shonen Jump's series "20th Century Boys".
Should this be pointed out in the page, or is it considered pointless trivia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.160.209.98 (talk) 18:33, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
What about this...?
I've also seen a ✌. I don't know whether or not this should be part of the Index article because it's just a fist. I don't know it's Unicode. D:
Colabcalub (talk) 13:14, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
It actually has its own article: V sign. I added a "see also" link from this article. If you happen to come across any other hand-related Unicode symbols, you might try putting them into Wikipedia's internal search engine (or a general-use search engine). That's how I found the V-sign article; we actually have a redirect there from the character. Neat! -- Beland (talk) 17:45, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
Use of the symbol in a retro fashion.
No mention of how the symbol is used to give things a Victorian feel? 88.104.254.106 (talk) 18:20, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Replaced by arrow
This morning, Dbachmann updated the article with this addition:
Signpost with pointing hand in a caricature published in 1773
The now-ubiquitous arrow symbol (→) being easier to draw and recognize, has largely replaced the manicule in many contexts. The arrow symbol appears only in the 18th century, at first in technical diagrams. Its widespread use to indicate directions in signposts etc. does not develop before the early 20th century, and signposts of the 18th and 19th century would sometimes use a pointing hand in place of what would now be an arrow symbol.
I wrote this as an edit note to explain a bunch of citation needed tags, but on further consideration, I think we need a discussion on how best to express this. I wrote
Arrow: credible but a lot of uncited assertions, so tagged as cn. It may be true in hand annotations but in print? What about finger posts? Chevrons on road signs? Index [manicule] is definitely still used, but perhaps decoratively rather than functionally.
Thanks, JMF; the variation selector seems to solve the issue. I tested on several browsers and it both renders correctly and persists when copied and pasted. Rjjiii (talk) 13:21, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks are more due to whoever added that function to {{unichar}}. I failed at the time to understand the issue and this is the first time I've seen it in action. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:12, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Possible GA nomination
@JMF, Beland, Colin M, RW Dutton, Perey, Addedentry, and HarJIT: I started by addressing a few citation needed tags and have ended up going through a good chunk of the article. I plan to fact-check and clean up the rest, but it seems to already be in decent shape. I am thinking about working towards a Good Article nomination and wanted to give the previous major contributors to the article a heads up. Rjjiii (talk) 04:26, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
Go right ahead. Most obviously, the bullet list at #Terminology will be frowned upon, needs to be made into plain text. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:27, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
Splendid! Feel free to drop a ping if you feel you could use another set of eyes on anything during the process. Colin M (talk) 18:37, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
Just posting an update: I think it's mostly ready to nominate. I'll probably hold off just a bit to make sure it's not reviewed when time is short for me. If anybody wants to double-check anything feel free. Rjjiii (talk) 07:46, 29 December 2025 (UTC)
History comments
As requested, I am editing for the Guild of Copyeditors. What a great topic!! The writing is quite good, but I do have a few notes:
This paragraph in History seems to be pretty far off the mark and may not be needed very much. Consider deleting:
"The term index had a broader range of meaning in medieval and early Renaissance books.[1] The modern index, an alphabetic listing of topics printed at the back of a book, was not included in medieval manuscript books or the early printed books. Instead, readers would rely on a broad range of indices that they added to their own books, including marginalia, tables, lists, and bookmarks. The term index comes from the index finger which could be used by readers to physically mark one's place when cross-referencing different pages in a book.[2] A common type of marginal index was the nota bene, which translates literally "note well", where a written note would be placed in the margin and often directed to a part of the main text with a manicule."
This paragraph seems to have a number of not-quite-related ideas:
"The oldest book known to contain a manicule is the 1086 land survey, Domesday Book, but the age of the annotation is unknown and may date to much later.[3] Domesday Book uses a range of symbols for marginal annotations including the manicule and daggers.[3] Though the manicule was used for centuries to annotate books by both copyists and readers, there was little written about the mark itself. Printer John Johnson's 1824 guide and history of typography, Typographia, Or The Printers' Instructor, lays out the book's various reference marks, such as the dagger, manicule, and asterisk as reference symbols that "in most instances explain themselves."[4]"
Is the paragraph about the Domesday Book or the lack of discussion about the manicule? is Johnson referring to Domesday or books in general? Do his comments help the reader understand the manicule at all?
The picture of Gill's manicules is great! Can it be cropped to eliminate the other characters?
This section in Print is very erudite, but not really about manicules. Consider deleting it.
The earliest Greek documents were written in solid blocks of capital letters without spaces, paragraph breaks, or punctuation. Literature scholars believe these manuscripts were meant to be read aloud. The paragraphos was introduced by scribes in the 4th century AD as a line placed beside a block of text. These marginal symbols evolved into a pair of abbreviations. A stylized , for kaput or 'head', was placed at the beginning of new sections; a , for capitulum or 'little head', which evolved into the pilcrow () was placed at the beginning of subsections that modern readers would recognize as paragraphs. Spaces were left at the beginning of paragraphs in many early print documents for rubricators to hand-draw the pilcrows. These spaces were eventually left unrubricated leading to the modern tradition of indenting a paragraph.
Overall, this is a fine article that was a pleasure to read. Thanks for creating it!
I hope you find my edits and suggestions useful. Littenberg (talk) 19:11, 15 December 2025 (UTC) Littenberg (talk) 19:11, 15 December 2025 (UTC)
Although I'm not one of the main contributors, these look like useful remarks to me and I will have a look in detail tomorrow (UTC+00). Thank you for doing the copyedit: although I quibbled with two or three of your changes, in the main they were useful improvements. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:33, 15 December 2025 (UTC)
Thank you, both! Some things probably were out of scope or off-topic. I've moved the the discussion about marginalia in general to Marginalia#History. I've also tried to clarify the Domesday Book paragraph. The paragraph on the Renaissance index is directly related to the etymology and function of the manicule. I'll think over if maybe there is a better way to make that point clear. Rjjiii (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2025 (UTC)
There are quite a few {{harv}} errors which I will try to clear up tomorrow. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:34, 15 December 2025 (UTC)
@JMF, broken links or the unused full citations? I just removed and commented out some unused citations. I added background information here, but later moved the passage to marginalia where it is more on topic and WP:DUE. Rjjiii (talk) 05:58, 16 December 2025 (UTC)
I have User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors.js installed and strongly recommend it. It identifies a variety of errors and omissions. Harv references (especially {{sfnp}}) are well worth while, make the source much more readable and the output looks more professional (than regular <ref> ... </ref> tags. (I don't understand why anyone would want to use {{harv}}inside<ref> ... </ref> tags, unless it is a habit predates sfnp). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:43, 16 December 2025 (UTC)
You seem to have cleared them up anyway. The only ones left for me to resolve were the Unicode standards. (I also suspended two more unused sources.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:42, 16 December 2025 (UTC)
Thanks. I like the formatting on the Unicode citation, so I've tried to make them all a bit more consistent based on that. Rjjiii (talk) 14:48, 23 December 2025 (UTC)
btw, I noticed how you used "use harvinside<ref> ... </ref> tags" to add a quote. Clever. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:31, 23 December 2025 (UTC)
"Default"?
In the table at Manicule#Emoji, what is the line "default appearance" intended to convey? Is it the representative glyph in the standard? (because 'text' is not the default [i.e., no VS applied] on Android nor ChromeOS for U+261D☝WHITE UP POINTING INDEX). But do we even need this line? what is its purpose? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:08, 29 December 2025 (UTC)
"default presentation"? Maybe we don't need that row in the table at all. When it was added a couple years ago, there was less prose context in the Unicode section. Also, you're right about Android and ChromeOS which are both very common. "default appearance" was originally worded as "base code point" which seems too technical for a general audience. Rjjiii (talk) 15:42, 29 December 2025 (UTC)
